Germany: Schleswig-Holstein Higher Regional Court rejected emergency application by Stichting Onderzoek Marktinformatie against Meta to prohibit use of certain customer data for AI training purposes (Case No. 6 UKI 3/25)

On 12 August 2025, the Schleswig-Holstein Higher Regional Court rejected an application filed by Stichting Onderzoek Marktinformatie (SOMI) against Meta to prohibit the use of certain customer data from Facebook and Instagram services for artificial intelligence (AI) training purposes, on the grounds of lack of urgency, in case number 6 UKI 3/25. The court found that Meta had publicly announced in 2024, and by direct email to users, including SOMI in April 2025, its intention to use certain public profile data of adult customers, de-identified and tokenised, for AI model development and improvement, including the AI service Llama, beginning on 27 May 2025. This data could include information from posts, comments, and images that may contain personal data of children, unregistered third parties, and special category data under Article 9 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), such as ethnic or racial origin, sexual orientation, or political opinions, where such data had not been made public by the data subjects. The Court noted that SOMI, despite awareness of the potential unauthorised processing since April 2025, delayed filing its application until 27 June 2025, one month after processing commenced, whereas the Consumer Advice Centre of North Rhine-Westphalia had sought interim relief before the Cologne Higher Regional Court (I-15 UKl 2/25) prior to data use. The Court concluded that any alleged violations must be pursued in the main proceedings, with the judgment scheduled for publication in the State case law database.