European users were not part of the experimental project in which Facebook listened in on and recorded certain conversations, claimed the social media site in a statement on Thursday, August 15.
“No user from the European Union was affected,” said Alex Dziedzan, spokesperson of the company. They only launched the project in the United States, reported hvg.hu.
On Wednesday, Facebook admitted to having quit the project, but previously – allegedly, with the permission of the users – they had listened in on certain conversations on the Messenger app, which belongs to the site, and recorded them with the help of artificial intelligence. Later, these were overseen by subcontractors for the accuracy and improvement of the speech recognition technology. These subcontractors listened to the anonymised recordings in order to do that.
Since European users are not affected, it is unlikely that the Irish authorities will start an official investigation into European data protection standards.
In terms of US laws, internet platforms can make such recordings, but only if they make it clear in their terms and conditions. Facebook stated that they only recorded conversations of users who specifically agreed to it, but it is unclear whether said users were aware of what the company would later use the recordings for.
Hungarian data protection authority demands Facebook to protect users’ privacy, read more HERE.
Source: https://hvg.hu/
