European privacy group noyb has filed five complaints accusing Scale AI’s Outlier platform of tracking freelance workers and mishandling data requests, putting privacy protections in AI training work under scrutiny.
Submitted Oct. 27 under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, the complaints are split among France, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria, which accounts for two filings. They challenge third-party tracking and identity checks, and allege that some workers did not receive answers to requests for their personal data. The allegations are not regulatory findings.
A Dutch complaint says a worker’s network capture on May 22, 2026, showed connections to trackers associated with Fullstory, Sprig, LinkedIn, Posthog, Segment, Run.app and Google. The French complaint alleges Fullstory logged cursor activity and keyboard input while making network requests every few seconds. Reuters reported that filings it reviewed referred to as many as 19 trackers.
noyb estimates Outlier has more than 900,000 freelance workers, who do tasks such as writing prompts and ranking AI answers. Scale’s privacy policy says the company and service providers such as Persona may collect selfies, government ID images and audio or video recordings at signup and periodically to verify identity and skills. It says the information may be treated as biometric or sensitive data under some jurisdictions’ laws.
Scale said Oct. 28 that its data practices are disclosed and require consent, calling the allegations “unfounded and inaccurate” in a statement to Reuters. The company said it uses tools for identity verification, fraud prevention, protecting confidential project information and ensuring accurate payments. Reuters reported that a Scale spokesperson described a separate tool used on some projects to record time and screen activity, which contributors opt into and activate themselves.
noyb has asked regulators to investigate and consider administrative fines. The group’s announcement gave no date for a regulator decision.
