European privacy group noyb filed complaints in France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Austria alleging that Scale AI's Outlier platform illegally tracks its workforce. The company rejected the claims as unfounded, stating that verification tools are necessary to secure confidential projects, halt fraud, and process accurate wages. Scale clarified that recording tools are used only on select tasks, requiring freelancers to manually activate them before starting assignments. Additionally, the firm pledged that it never sells contributor data or uses worker personal information to train client artificial intelligence models.
Key points
The data infrastructure company faces potential European regulatory fines over allegation…: The data infrastructure company faces potential European regulatory fines over allegations of illegal contractor surveillance practices.
Platform operators defend the monitoring tools as necessary industry measures to prevent…: Platform operators defend the monitoring tools as necessary industry measures to prevent fraud and protect project confidentiality.
Scale AI confirmed that contractor personal information is neither sold to third parties…: Scale AI confirmed that contractor personal information is neither sold to third parties nor used to train customer models.
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Oct 28 : Scale AI on Wednesday rejected the privacy complaints filed against it in four European countries as unfounded, saying its platform's practices were disclosed to workers and required their consent.
Privacy group noyb filed the complaints on Tuesday in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria, alleging Scale's Outlier platform illegally monitors more than 900,000 freelancers who produce training data for AI models, and asked regulators to fine the company.
• "The report's claims are unfounded and inaccurate," Scale said in an emailed statement to Reuters
• Scale said it uses standard tools to verify identities, prevent fraud, protect confidential project information and ensure accurate payments
• Contributors know their pay rates before accepting tasks and those rates reflect skills, project details and location, it added
• A company spokesperson said certain projects use a separate tool that records time spent and screen activity, which contributors opt into and manually activate before starting work
• Scale does not sell workers' personal data to third parties or use it to train customers' AI models, the spokesperson said
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