Skip to main content TechRadar the technology experts Search TechRadar View Profile België (Nederlands) Deutschland North America US (English) Australasia New Zealand Tech Radar Pro Tech Radar Gaming Nintendo Switch 2 Best laptop NYT Wordle today Computing Security Cyber Security Meta is set to train its AI models with Europeans' public data, and you can stop it doing so Chiara Castro 17 April 2025 Public posts and users' interactions will soon feed Meta AI training When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Photo by VINCENT FEURAY/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images) Meta will soon start training its AI models with EU users' data Meta AI will be trained with all users' interactions and public content posted on Meta's social platforms The Big Tech giant resumes its AI training plan, after pausing the launch amid EU data regulators' concerns Meta has resumed its plan to train its AI models with EU users' data, the company announced on Monday, April 14, 2025. All public posts and comments shared by adults across Meta's social platforms will soon be used to train Meta AI, alongside all interactions users directly exchange with the chatbot. This comes as the Big Tech giant successfully launched Meta AI in the EU in March, almost a year after the firm paused the launch amid growing concerns among EU data regulators. You may like Meta purportedly trained its AI on more than 80TB of pirated content and then open-sourced Llama for the greater good What is Meta AI: everything you need to know about the social network’s AI assistant What's Meta AI training and how to opt out "We believe we have a responsibility to build AI that’s not just available to Europeans, but is built for them. That’s why it’s so important for our generative AI models to be trained on a variety of data so they can understand the incredible and diverse nuances and complexities that make up European communities," wrote Meta in the official announcement. This kind of training, the company notes, it's not unique to Meta or Europe. Meta AI collects and processes the same information, in fact, across all regions where it's available. As mentioned earlier, Meta AI will be trained with all public posts and interactions' data from adult users. Public data from the accounts of people in the EU under the age of 18 won't be used for training purposes. Meta also promises that no people's private messages shared on iMessage and WhatsApp will ever be used for AI training purposes, too. (Image credit: Meta / Future) Beginning this week, all Meta users in the EU will start receiving notifications about the terms of the new AI training, either via app or email. These notifications will include a link to a form where people can withdraw their consent for their data to be used for training Meta AI. "We have made this objection form easy to find, read, and use, and we’ll honor all objection forms we have already received, as well as newly submitted ones," explains the provider. It's crucial to understand that once fed into an LLM database, you will be completely losing control over your data, as these systems make it very hard (if not impossible) to exercise the GDPR's right to be forgotten. This is why privacy experts like Proton, the provider behind one of the best VPN and encrypted email apps, are urging people in Europe concerned about their privacy to opt out of Meta AI training. "We recommend filling out this form when it's sent to you to protect your privacy. It's hard to predict what this data might be used for in the future – better to be safe than sorry," Proton wrote on a LinkedIn post. Meta's announcement comes at the same time that the Irish data regulators have opened an investigation into X's Grok AI. Specifically, the enquiry seeks to determine whether Elon Musk's platform uses publicly-accessible X posts to train its generative AI models in compliance with GDPR rules. You might also like Everyone wants the viral AI doll – but it’s a privacy nightmare waiting to happen Grok may start remembering everything you ask it to do Give Meta my face recognition data? I'd rather lose my Instagram account See more Computing News Chiara Castro Social Links Navigation News Editor (Tech Software) Chiara is a multimedia journalist committed to covering stories to help promote the rights and denounce the abuses of the digital side of life – wherever cybersecurity, markets, and politics tangle up. She believes an open, uncensored, and private internet is a basic human need and wants to use her knowledge of VPNs to help readers take back control. She writes news, interviews, and analysis on data privacy, online censorship, digital rights, tech policies, and security software, with a special focus on VPNs, for TechRadar and TechRadar Pro. Got a story, tip-off, or something tech-interesting to say? Reach out to chiara.castro@futurenet.com You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. 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