Meta Halts AI Assistant in Europe Due to Regulatory Pushback

Meta has announced a halt on its plans to launch an AI assistant in Europe following objections from Ireland’s privacy regulator. Meta said it is “disappointed” by the request, “particularly since we incorporated regulatory feedback and the European [Data Protection Authorities] have been informed since March.” The company expressed disappointment over the request from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) to delay training its large language models on publicly posted content from Facebook and Instagram profiles.

Meta said it will “continue to work collaboratively with the DPC.” But its blog post says that Google and OpenAI have “already used data from Europeans to train AI” and claims that if regulators don’t let it use users’ information to train its models, Meta can only deliver an inferior product. “Put simply, without including local information we’d only be able to offer people a second-rate experience. This means we aren’t able to launch Meta AI in Europe at the moment.”

Whereas, European regulators, have welcomed the pause. “We are pleased that Meta has reflected on the concerns we shared from users of their service in the UK, and responded to our request to pause and review plans to use Facebook and Instagram user data to train generative AI,” Stephen Almond, the executive director of regulatory risk at the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, said in a statement.

The DPC’s intervention followed a campaign by the advocacy group NOYB (None of Your Business), which filed 11 complaints against Meta in various European countries. NOYB founder Max Schrems highlighted that the core issue was Meta’s legal basis for collecting personal data.

Meta’s situation underscores the ongoing tension between tech companies and European regulators over data privacy and AI development. As Meta navigates these regulatory challenges, the future of its AI assistant in Europe remains uncertain. “Meta is basically saying that it can use any data from any source for any purpose and make it available to anyone in the world, as long as it’s done via AI technology,” Schrems said. “This is clearly the opposite of GDPR compliance.”