evidence: Back in June, Meta was forced to pause its plans to use Europeans’ data for AI training after objections from European Union and U.K. regulators. The watchdogs were unhappy that people were being asked to opt-out, rather than affirmatively agree, to this new use of their data. Meta has said it’s relying on a legal provision within the GDPR called "legitimate interests" (LI) — which it suggests justifies not obtaining people’s consent first. But its use of the same legal basis for processing personal data for its micro-targeted advertising business was struck down by the Court of Justice of the European Union in a July 2023 ruling. Privacy experts argue LI is similarly inappropriate for Meta to grab people’s data for training AIs. [...] The overriding issue also hasn’t changed: Meta is only offering users an opt-out, rather than giving them a free choice over use of their data for AI training. If it did that, users would need to affirmatively "opt in" before it could use their information and that’s still not the case here. Unless the user objects, Meta will be using their information to train its AI — assuming it does honor the objection.