The people who teach AI to behave are, allegedly, being watched like machines. European privacy group noyb filed five complaints against Scale AI on Tuesday, accusing it of illegally monitoring the freelance workers who produce training data for the industry's biggest models, according to Reuters.

The complaints target Outlier, Scale AI's platform where more than 900,000 freelancers complete tasks that train models for clients including Meta, OpenAI, and Google. Meta owns 49% of Scale AI. Noyb is asking regulators in France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Austria to fine the company and examine how it assigns work.

The surveillance alleged is strikingly thorough. Up to 19 trackers follow workers while they work, the complaints say, recording keystrokes and mouse movements every few seconds. An investigation by Paris research collective DiPLab found the resulting data could be rebuilt into a video that replays an entire work session from start to finish. Workers must also submit ID documents and face video to identity-verification firm Persona — checks the complaints call invasive, repeated without explanation, and in breach of EU rules on biometric data.

"You don't work when you want," said Thomas Le Bonniec, who spent two years studying the platform for DiPLab. "You work when the platform wants you to and there are tasks available." Scale AI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The complaints also take aim at how Outlier keeps workers grinding. The platform uses game-like mechanisms, with bonuses a key part of the incentive system: $100 to $200 for completing 200 tasks in 24 hours, Le Bonniec said, citing interviews with workers. Italy's data protection authority fined delivery platform Glovo in 2021 over similar gamification. And when four workers asked Outlier for copies of their own data between December 2025 and May 2026, none received an answer, the complaints said.

This is the hidden-labor side of the AI boom, and it keeps getting harder to ignore. The same week the industry is arguing over model prices and data-center spending, the workers labeling the data are asking a simpler question: who watches the watchers. If regulators agree the monitoring broke EU law, the ruling could ripple far beyond Scale AI — every AI lab depends on the same kind of human training work, and most of it happens under similar terms. Watch whether Meta, as part-owner and client, says anything at all.

— via reuters