Meta executives face criticism over data scraping practices in Australia.
Meta’s privacy director admitted to an Australian parliamentary committee that the company scrapes photos and posts of public users aged above 18 to train its AI models without consent.
She said posts set to private can prevent future scraping but not undo past scraping. Senator Tony Sheldon, chair of the AI oversight panel, said millions of Australians have not agreed to their data being used for AI training.
He criticized tech giants for ignoring laws and rights in their pursuit. Currently, only EU users can opt out of data scraping due to a regulatory order against Meta over privacy concerns.
Senator David Shoebridge demanded the same exemption for Australians, questioning why simple opt-out options available in Europe cannot be provided.
He argued Meta’s stance forces users to retrospectively make all past public posts private to stop scraping.
Privacy advocates in India have also raised concerns about harm to users from the automated processing of personal data by Meta AI without proper opt-out processes. Meta faces mounting criticism over its non-consensual data practices outside the EU.
