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Instagram and Facebook users in Europe will soon have their data and posts used by parent company Meta to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models.

Europeans have until May 27 to restrict Meta from using their data, the date when the company will start using Europe’s data.  

Privacy regulators from Belgium, France, and the Netherlands have already found issues with Meta’s AI, which came to Europe this year.

Internet data scraping is one of the biggest debates in AI, with tech companies such as OpenAI saying all content online should be used to train AI models, which has led to lawsuits over copyright and data practices. 

If you are uncomfortable with Meta using your data, you can opt out. But Meta does not guarantee it will allow this and says it will “review objection requests in accordance with relevant data protection laws”. 

However, seeing as Europeans are protected by the bloc’s data rules, known as GDPR, citizens are better protected than in many other countries, according to the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower and data rights activist, Brittany Kaiser. 

“You do actually have rights that you can exercise. It’s not super easy to exercise them, but you can do it. And that’s luckier than most people on the planet,” she told Euronews Next.

Users in Europe can object to their data being scraped and like other countries, opt of Meta using your data.  But Meta does not guarantee it will allow this and says it will “review objection requests in accordance with relevant data protection laws”. 

This is how you can opt out. 

Opting out on Facebook:

1. After logging into your account, you can either click on this link here.

Or click on your account icon in the top right corner, select “settings and privacy,” then “privacy centre”. 

On the left-hand side, there is a drop-down menu labelled “How Meta uses information for generative AI models and features”. Click on that and scroll down before clicking on “Right to object”.

1. Enter your email address at the bottom of the form and click Submit.

3. You should then receive both an email and a notification on your Facebook   account confirming if your request has been successful.

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Opting out on Instagram:

1. Log in to your account, access your profile page and click on the three lines at the top-right corner. Then click on “settings and privacy”.

2. Scroll to “more info and support” and click “about”. Then click on “Privacy policy”. At the very top of the page, click on “learn more about your right to object.” 

3. Enter your email address at the bottom of the form and click Submit.

4. You should then receive both an email and a notification on your Facebook account confirming if your request has been successful.

Taking matters even further:

If you want to take your digital rights even further, you can. But it is a lengthy process. 

“Exercise your rights under GDPR and ask for copies of all of the data that is held on you from the companies that you use,” Kaiser said.

“If you don’t want them to share your data with Meta, make it known and be active about it because if you are active about it, you can prevent your data from being used in some of these systems,” she added. 

Once you have your data from the companies, you can then let the companies know you don’t want your data to be used. 

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Kaiser said you can write an email to these companies, and use already formatted letters that you can find online. 

“Companies have finally gotten a process underway, and they will send you data files of all of the data that they hold on you. You can withdraw your consent for them to market or to share it. You can also request the right to delete,” she said. 

“If you would not like your data to be so easily accessible for Meta models, you can do that, and that’s probably your best shot,” she added.

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