The move comes after Meta announced last month that it would promote plans to use personal data from European users on Instagram and Facebook platforms to train AI (artificial intelligence) technology from May 27, 2025, despite criticism of its legality.
Meta has received many complaints about privacy in Europe, but has cited "legitimate benefits" for processing personal data for AI training purposes.
The privacy protection group - European Digital Rights Center (also known as Noyb) has threatened to file a ban or file a class action against Meta if the company does not stop the plan.
"Meta's unreasonable claims that using people's personal data is necessary for AI training are funny," Noyb founder Max Schrems said in a statement.
"Other AI providers don't use social media data and create even better models than Meta," he added.
When Meta AI was first launched in the European Union at the end of March 2025, the tech giant had to make efforts to point out that this chatbot was not trained on data from European users.
The implementation on this continent has been delayed for more than a year due to overlapping European regulations on emerging technologies, including user data, AI and digital markets.
Its unreasonable to say that Meta needs the personal data of people who have used Facebook or Instagram for the past 20 years to train AI, Schrems said, adding that the plans are neither legal nor necessary.
Schrems added that with about 400 million Meta users in Europe, accepting 10% of them is clearly enough for AI language training and similar purposes.
Launched in 2018, Noyb has carried out many lawsuits with technology giants, often forcing management agencies to take action.
