Meta Platforms Ireland Limited – Court Ruling (Germany, 2025)

In April 2025, Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (Meta) publicly announced that it would use personal data from its users' public profiles to train artificial intelligence from 27 May 2025, unless users object to this processing. In May 2025, the German Consumer Rights Organisation "Verbraucherzentrale NRW" (plaintiff) brought an interim injunction case against Meta before the High Regional Court of Cologne, to prevent the processing of publicly provided user data. Following a preliminary and summary examination, as part of the interim proceeding, the High Regional Court of Cologne held that Meta did not breach the GDPR or the DMA, noting that this assessment is consistent with the regulatory assessment by the Irish DPA responsible for Meta. The Hamburg DPA (Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information) stated at the hearing that the use of user's personal data for AI training purposes is legally possible. The court held that the processing is lawful within the meaning of Article 6(1)(f) GDPR, even without the data subjects' consent, and that Meta pursues a legitimate interest by using the data for the training of artificial intelligence systems. He further pointed that the fact that large amounts of data, also from third parties including minors and sensitive data within the meaning of Article 9 GDPR, are processed, does not outweigh this consideration. The High Regional Court of Cologne rejected the interim measure.