Scale AI faces European data complaints over Outlier

Data protection group Noyb said Tuesday it was filing five legal complaints in Europe against Scale AI over how its Outlier training platform handles workers' data.

Noyb said it was filing two complaints in Austria and one each in France, the Netherlands and Italy. Outlier recruits freelancers and subject-matter experts to train, evaluate and improve artificial intelligence models.

The group alleged that Outlier collects large amounts of personal data and requires workers to go through repeated biometric verification to earn money. It said the process includes facial video recordings and ID uploads carried out by a company called Persona.

Noyb also alleged that trackers from companies including TikTok, LinkedIn and Facebook are placed on workers' devices while they are using Outlier, giving access to information including IP addresses, contact details and data usable for targeted advertising and profiling.

Noyb said Outlier uses more than 900,000 freelancers and has customers including Meta, OpenAI, Google and the US government.