Social media giant Meta has announced plans to resume using publicly available content from European users to train its artificial intelligence models.
The company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said the data would come from public posts and comments made by adult users across the 27 European Union member states.
Meta revealed this on Monday April 14, 2025, via a blog post, stating that user interactions with its Meta AI assistant will also be used.
“People’s interactions with Meta AI like questions and queries will also be used to train and improve our models,” the company stated.
This move marks the restart of Meta’s AI training in Europe after it paused operations last year due to privacy concerns.
The company launched its Meta AI assistant in Europe last month, much later than its release in the US and other markets.
Meta’s initial efforts faced resistance due to the EU’s strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws.
The laws empower EU citizens to control how companies use their personal data.
A Vienna-based rights group, NOYB, led by privacy activist Max Schrems, had raised objections against Meta’s earlier AI data plans.
The group filed complaints with national privacy authorities, asking them to stop Meta’s data processing.
However, Meta pointed to a December ruling by EU privacy regulators which, according to the company, affirmed that its approach meets legal obligations.
Meta clarified that it will not use private messages for training purposes.
The company also claimed that its rivals, Google and OpenAI, have already trained their models using European data.
Meta said it will notify EU users and provide a form for those who wish to object.
“We’ll honor all objection forms,” the company assured.