Privacy

26 May is the last day to prevent Meta Ai from using your personal data

The Garante recalls the deadlines for exercising the right: minors are also affected. In the event of inaction, the principle of silence of consent applies

by Giovanni Negri

26 May 2025

Ultimo giorno per impedire a Meta Ai di utilizzare i tuoi dati personali: come fare per bloccare l’utilizzo (Alain Jocartd/Afp)

2' min read

Key points

Extended opposition
Meta's ad
Determining timeliness
Forms
The rules on minors
Authority programmes

2' min read

Users of Facebook and Instagram, as well asnon-users whose data may nevertheless be present on the two platforms because they are published by users, have the right to object to the processing of their personal data for the training of Meta's artificial intelligence, using the forms made available online by the company. This was recalled by the Privacy Guarantor in a note issued on 29 April 2025.

Extended Opposition

The right to object, recognised by the GDPR (European Data Protection Regulation), can also be exercised, the Garante warns, against other Ia systems, such as, for instance, those of OpenAi, DeepSeek and Google.

Meta's ad

The Authority's intervention comes after Meta announced its intention, from the end of May, to use the data contained in public posts of users over 18 years of age (posts, comments, captions, photos and other material) and those resulting from the use of its Ia services.

Determining timeliness

The time of exercise of the opposition is of immediate relevance. In fact, if exercised by 26 May 2025, the objection will allow Meta's artificial intelligence to subtract from the training of Meta's artificial intelligence all the personal information already present on the web, whereas if exercised afterwards it will affect only the content published later and not the content already online. If the objection is then not filed, Meta will use all the data for training its artificial intelligence. WhatsApp is excluded from the measure. .

The modules

The right to object can be exercised by filling in the forms of Meta.

The rules on minors

While data published by underage users are by default exempt from Meta's processing for training its artificial intelligence. It is not, however, excluded that data relating to users and non-users who are minors may be present in content published by users who are of age.

Even in this case, however, there is a possibility of opposition, the Authority points out: users and non-users who are minors and those who exercise parental responsibility over them parental responsibility can proceed using the form reserved for non-users of Meta's services.

Authorities' programmes

In the meantime, the Garante is working with other European authorities to assess the conformity of the processing of personal data that Meta has announced it will implement on the basis of legitimate interest.

The Guarantors' attention is focused in particular on the lawfulness of these practices, the effectiveness of the right to object, and the compatibility between the original purposes of the processing and this new use of data. The authorities also asked Meta for information on the use of images of users under the age of eighteen published by adult users.