Bad newsPrivacy Group Files Five Complaints Over Tracking of 900,000 AI Training Workers
The privacy group noyb says Scale AI's Outlier platform places up to 19 trackers on workers' devices, forces repeated face and ID checks and ignored data requests. It wants EU regulators to fine the company. Scale AI had not commented.
This story runs on the bad side only. The biggest stories of the day are told on both sides.
People who train AI models on the Outlier platform are being watched far more closely than any employee would be, according to complaints filed on Tuesday. The privacy group noyb, working with Intérêt à Agir, DiPLab and Reversing.Works, filed five GDPR complaints against Scale AI in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria. Reuters says Scale AI had not responded to a request for comment. Everything below is an allegation in the complaints.
What the complaints say
Outlier has more than 900,000 freelancers who write prompts, rank answers and do other tasks that become training data. Reuters lists Meta, OpenAI and Google among the clients and notes that Meta owns 49% of Scale AI. noyb adds the US government to the list.
The complaints say up to 19 trackers follow workers while they work. Reuters reports that they record keystrokes and mouse movements every few seconds. A DiPLab investigation found the resulting file could be rebuilt into a video replaying a work session. noyb names trackers from TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook, Sprig and Datadog. It says they send IP addresses, contact details, identifiers and the pages visited to third parties, which could be used for advertising and profiling.
Workers must also repeatedly submit identity documents and face video to the verification company Persona. The complaints call the checks invasive, repeated without explanation and contrary to EU rules on biometric data. Scale AI says, according to noyb, that the checks prevent identity fraud and verify skills.
Thomas Le Bonniec, who studied the platform for DiPLab for two years, told Reuters that workers are not free to choose when they work, only to work when the platform has tasks. He says bonuses of $100 to $200 were offered for completing 200 tasks in 24 hours. He adds that Italy’s data protection authority fined the delivery platform Glovo in 2021 over similar game-like incentives.
Four workers asked Outlier for copies of their data between December 2025 and May 2026, the complaints say. None received a reply. noyb asks the regulators to investigate fully and to consider an administrative fine. Regulators have not yet said whether they will take up the cases, and neither source gives a timetable.
