How to stop Meta from using some of your personal data to train generative AI models
Mark Zuckerberg told the world in October 2021 that he was rebranding Facebook to Meta as the company pushes toward the metaverse.
Facebook | via Reuters
Facebook users are now able to delete some personal information that can be used by the company in the training of generative artificial intelligence models.
Meta updated the Facebook help center resource section on its website this week to include a form titled “Generative AI Data Subject Rights,” which allows users to “submit requests related to your third party information being used for generative AI model training.”
The company is adding the opt-out tool as generative AI technology is taking off across tech, with companies creating more sophisticated chatbots and turning simple text into sophisticated answers and images. Meta is giving people the option to access, alter or delete any personal data that was included in the various third-party data sources the company uses to train its large language and related AI models.
On the form, Meta refers to third-party information as data “that is publicly available on the internet or licensed sources.” This kind of information, the company says, can represent some of the “billions of pieces of data” used to train generative AI models that “use predictions and patterns to create new content.”
In a related blog post on how it uses data for generative AI, Meta says it collects public information on the web in addition to licensing data from other providers. Blog posts, for example, can include personal information, such as someone’s name and contact information, Meta said.
The form doesn’t account for a user’s activity on Facebook-owned properties, such as their public Facebook comments and Instagram photos. CNBC contacted Meta for information about whether that first-party information will continue to be used in training its generative AI models. The company hasn’t responded.
Like many tech peers, including Microsoft, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet, Meta gathers enormous quantities of third-party data to train its models and related AI software.
“To train effective models to unlock these advancements, a significant amount of information is needed from publicly available and licensed sources,” Meta said in the blog post. The company added that “use of public information and licensed data is in our interests, and we are committed to being transparent about the legal bases that we use for processing this information.”
Recently, however, some data privacy advocates have questioned the practice of aggregating vast quantities of publicly available information to train AI models.
Last week, a consortium of data protection agencies from the U.K., Canada, Switzerland and other countries issued a joint statement to Meta, Alphabet, TikTok parent ByteDance, X (formerly known as Twitter), Microsoft and others about data scraping and protecting user privacy.
The letter was intended to remind social media and tech companies that they remain subject to various data protection and privacy laws around the world and “that they protect personal information accessible on their websites from data scraping, particularly so that they are compliant with data protection and privacy laws around the world.”
“Individuals can also take steps to protect their personal information from data scraping, and social media companies have a role to play in enabling users to engage with their services in a privacy protective manner,” the group said in the statement.
Here’s how you can delete some of your Facebook data used for training generative AI models:
- Go to the “Generative AI Data Subject Rights” form on Meta’s privacy policy page about generative AI.
- Click the link for “Learn more and submit requests here.”
- Choose from three options that Meta says “best describes your issue or objection.”
The first option lets people access, download, or correct any of their personal information gleaned from third-party sources that’s used to train generative AI models. By choosing the second option, they can delete any of the personal information from those third-party data sources used for training. The third option is for people who “have a different issue.”
After selecting one of the three options, users will need to pass a security check test. Some users have commented that they’re unable to finish completing the form because of what appears to be a software bug.
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Michael Intrator, co-founder and chief executive officer of CoreWeave Inc., during an interview on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Monday, Sept. 22, 2025.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
CoreWeave on Thursday announced a $6.5 billion deal with OpenAI, expanding its current agreement with the artificial intelligence startup behind ChatGPT.
The new agreement brings the AI cloud infrastructure provider’s total contracts with OpenAI to $22.5 billion.
“This milestone affirms the trust that world-leading innovators have in CoreWeave’s ability to power the most demanding inference and training workloads at an unmatched pace,” CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator said in a statement.
In March, CoreWeave announced an $11.9-billion agreement with OpenAI to provide AI datacenters and technology over five years. Intrator told CNBC in May that the companies expanded the agreement by $4 billion.
CoreWeave, which went public in March, makes money by renting out data centers packed with numerous Nvidia graphics processing units. The company is backed by Nvidia and makes a significant chunk of its revenue from Microsoft, which is a key investor in OpenAI.
At the time of its prospectus, CoreWeave said it operated 32 datacenters powered over 250,000 Nvidia GPUs.
Earlier this month, CoreWeave’s share price popped after the company disclosed a $6.3 billion order from Nvidia.
WATCH: CoreWeave CEO: Building AI infrastructure will require trillions in public-private investment
Technology
Databricks commits to $100 million in OpenAI spending as high-valued startups team up in AI
Databricks co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi.
Databricks
OpenAI and Databricks are two of the most highly valued tech startups on the planet. Now they’re working together.
Databricks, a data analytics software vendor, said Thursday that it has committed to spending $100 million over multiple years with OpenAI. Databricks is making it easier for customers to connect their data stored in its cloud service with GPT-5, announced in August, and other OpenAI models.
OpenAI, which was recently valued by private investors at $500 billion, has become a household name in the years since the launch of its ChatGPT in late 2022. In partnering with Databricks, valued at more than $100 billion in its latest funding round, OpenAI has landed its first formal integration with a business-focused product vendor, said Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s operating chief, in a news conference Wednesday.
Lightcap said the company’s “aspiration is a multiple” of the $100 million spending commitment in terms of revenue the agreement will generate.
Databricks has formed similar partnerships with Google and with Anthropic. But OpenAI is leading the way with more than 700 million people using its ChatGPT assistant, powered by GPT-5, every week.
The company was making enterprise more of a focus even before the Databricks deal. Microsoft has been bringing OpenAI models into businesses, governments and schools. And OpenAI has been building up its own sales function.
Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi said the partnership will simplify the process for its customers when it comes to accessing OpenAI’s models, which they’ve already been using in large numbers.
Until now, if a Databricks customer wanted to tap a proprietary OpenAI model to help analyze internal data, it would have required extensive configuration, as well as legal and security sign-off.
“The key difference here is that any database customer automatically now, just by clicking in the UI, can start using this product,” Ghodsi said, referring to the user interface. Ghodsi said the price is similar to what it would cost if the user went directly to OpenAI.
Greg Ulrich, Mastercard‘s chief AI and data officer, said he’s optimistic about the integration.
“It enables opportunity for research and targeted experimentation, using AI to solve new problems, bringing value to customers, enhancing employee productivity, in an environment that we trust, that we know,” Ulrich said.
It’s an increasingly competitive space.
Databricks rival Snowflake, which has a market cap of $75 billion, announced an expansion of its Microsoft partnership in February, enabling the use of OpenAI models. Oracle, which has a $300 billion cloud contract from OpenAI, said two weeks ago that in October it will launch a service for running Google, OpenAI and xAI models on data stored in its database software.
Databricks said earlier this month that it now generates more than $4 billion in annualized revenue, growing over 50% year over year, with $1 billion coming from AI products. The company’s $100 billion valuation was announced alongside a $1 billion funding round.
OpenAI and Databricks ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, on CNBC’s 2025 Disruptor 50 list.
WATCH: Databricks CEO: ‘Agentic’ AI era will disrupt the whole database industry
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