The American group, accused by the privacy association noyb of violating the European Data Regulation (GDPR) to deliver targeted ads, had three months to comply with the legislation in force since 2018.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), acting on behalf of the EU, fined it nearly €400 million in January for infringements of its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp apps.
According to an updated blog post on Thursday, Meta will amend its terms of use and privacy policy for the European Union by changing the "legal basis" it uses to justify its use of personal data.
The group will henceforth rely on "legitimate interest", a legal concept used by companies when the processing of personal data they implement does not significantly affect the rights and interests of data subjects.
Currently, the group relies on a "contract" with the user when registering for the social network.
In a statement, the noyb association denounced this change which allows Meta to avoid collecting the explicit consent of the user.
"An illegal practice is replaced by a new illegal practice," writes the association, which plans to file a series of new complaints.
The founder of noyb, the Austrian Max Schrems, concedes, however, a "slight improvement for users" who will have a form allowing them to object to the use by Meta of certain data concerning them.
Legitimate interest is one of the six legal bases provided by the GDPR to justify the processing of personal data.
It is used in particular to guarantee network security, fraud prevention or commercial prospecting with customers of a company.
In the summer of 2022, TikTok, owned by the Chinese group ByteDance, had suspended until further notice an update in Europe that planned to use the same legal basis to broadcast advertising, after a warning from the Italian data protection authority that had concluded that the change was incompatible with the GDPR.
© 2023 AFP