{"id":304020,"date":"2025-05-24T03:26:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-24T10:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=304020"},"modified":"2025-07-01T14:34:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T21:34:35","slug":"meta-wins-in-germany-court-decides-it-can-use-user-data-to-train-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/meta-wins-in-germany-court-decides-it-can-use-user-data-to-train-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta wins in Germany: Court decides it can use user data to train AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A German court has ruled in favor of Meta, allowing the tech giant to use&nbsp;<strong>Facebook and Instagram user data to train its artificial intelligence systems<\/strong>. This decision, which follows a challenge by consumer protection groups, could set a precedent in Europe\u2019s ongoing debate over data privacy and AI development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Court backs Meta&#8217;s use of public data for AI training<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The higher regional court in Cologne determined that&nbsp;<strong>Meta is pursuing a legitimate objective<\/strong>&nbsp;in feeding user data into its AI systems. Crucially, the court stated that this practice is legal&nbsp;<strong>even without obtaining explicit consent<\/strong>&nbsp;from users, provided the data is publicly available and accessible via search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the ruling, there are no \u201cequally effective, less intrusive means\u201d to train such AI models, and&nbsp;<strong>Meta had taken steps to reduce the impact on users<\/strong>. These included notifying them through app interfaces and only utilizing publicly visible content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Consumer groups express doubts despite ruling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite the verdict,&nbsp;<strong>consumer advocacy organizations remain skeptical<\/strong>. The North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Advice Center, which brought the case, argued that the legality of Meta\u2019s practices is still in question. Its head, Wolfgang Schuldzinski, stated there are&nbsp;<strong>\u201cconsiderable doubts about the legality\u201d<\/strong>&nbsp;of using personal data this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, the privacy group Noyb, based in Vienna, has taken steps toward launching a legal challenge, beginning with a cease-and-desist letter to Meta. The group warned that&nbsp;<strong>further legal action could follow<\/strong>, including potential class-action lawsuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The court\u2019s decision may influence how other EU jurisdictions interpret the balance between AI innovation and data privacy, especially when it involves publicly available content on social media platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A German court has ruled in favor of Meta, allowing the tech giant to use&nbsp;Facebook and Instagram user data to train its artificial intelligence systems. This decision, which follows a challenge by consumer protection groups, could set a precedent in Europe\u2019s ongoing debate over data privacy and AI development. Court backs Meta&#8217;s use of public &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/meta-wins-in-germany-court-decides-it-can-use-user-data-to-train-ai\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Meta wins in Germany: Court decides it can use user data to train AI&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9317,"featured_media":304021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[6771],"class_list":["post-304020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","content-category-ai"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304022,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304020\/revisions\/304022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304020"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=304020"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=304020"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=304020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}