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Confirmed

Technology Desk

In Short: A lawsuit has been filed against Meta for allegedly using Facebook and Instagram photos to build face-recognition systems and train AI models.

Instagram screenshot
Photo: Instagram / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

A lawsuit was filed last week in federal court in Chicago against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, alleging illegal use of user photos.

The plaintiffs, a set of parents and their children from Illinois and California, claim Meta used their Facebook and Instagram images to develop an unreleased face-recognition system called NameTag.

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Meta has acknowledged using large quantities of Facebook and Instagram images and text to train its AI systems, including Emu and Muse Image.

Chris Cox, Meta's chief product officer, referred to Facebook and Instagram as a 'data advantage' for the company's AI systems.

Researchers analyzed posts about blood tests for Alzheimer's disease and dementia on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, finding that these posts collectively reached more than 114 million followers over an 11-year period.

The lawsuit also cites reporting that Meta employees claimed NameTag could recognize people through their Meta connections or public Instagram accounts, along with a company patent describing face matching against profile photos and other images held by Meta.

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