Privacy group noyb has filed five complaints against Scale AI in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria, accusing the US company of surveilling European contractors on its Outlier platform. Noyb asks national data protection authorities to investigate fully and, if necessary, fine the company.
Outlier contractors label data, evaluate AI-generated responses and carry out other tasks to improve AI models. Scale's customers include OpenAI, xAI, Anthropic and Google. Because the work is digital and remote, noyb says Scale collects extensive data to verify workers' identities and to track their activity.
The most contested point concerns identity checks. These are run by Persona, a company that was previously scrutinised over an exposed test environment. According to noyb, Persona collects biometric data, IP addresses, device information, geolocation, addresses and credit data of Outlier users. On activity, noyb alleges that Scale collects system and device data, including activity unrelated to Outlier work, and transmits it to third parties such as LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook and other analytics services, as often as every few seconds. Noyb warns this could be used to profile individuals and serve targeted advertising. A settembre l'Irlanda ha multato Google per 403 milioni di euro per il trattamento illecito dei dati di posizione degli utenti.
Noyb data protection lawyer Lisa Steinfeld Leiser said such constant tracking «really goes against all reasonable expectations». The complaints argue that Scale lacks a legal basis to install tracking software on contractors' devices, breaches data minimisation rules, ignores access requests and violates country-specific laws.
Scale responded: «The report's claims are unfounded and inaccurate. Outlier's practices are disclosed to contributors and require their consent. We use standard tools to verify identities, prevent fraud, protect confidential project information, and ensure accurate payment.»
The case arrives as the EU reconsiders its reliance on US tech companies, and may add fuel to that debate.
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