Facebook has admitted that it scrapes the public photos, posts and other data of Australian adult users to train its AI models and provides no opt-out option, even though it allows people in the European Union to refuse consent.

In short:

Facebook is scraping the public data of all Australian adults on the platform, it has acknowledged in an inquiry.

The company does not offer Australians an opt out option like it does in the EU, because it has not been required to do so under privacy law.

What’s next?

Facebook representatives could not say whether an opt-out option would be offered to Australians in the future.

  • niftyEnglish
    39•2 months ago

    It’s probably not just adults

    • @[email protected]English
      38•2 months ago

      Ms Claybaugh added that accounts of people under 18 were not scraped, but when asked by Senator Sheldon whether public photos of his own children on his account would be scraped, Ms Claybaugh acknowledged they would.

      The Facebook representative could not answer whether the company scraped data from previous years of users who were now adults, but were under 18 when they created their accounts.

      Welp

      • @[email protected]English
        14•2 months ago

        The Facebook representative could not answer whether…

        This guy’s terrible at his job. Even I can answer that one.

        Abso-fucking-lutely yes.