Facebook wants Meta AI to access your private, unpublished photos

Facebook has been using your public photos, posts, and interactions to train its artificial intelligence (AI) for years, but now it wants access to photos that you’ve never even uploaded.

When Facebook users are creating a new story, they receive a pop-up that asks if they would like to opt into “cloud processing” for creative suggestions, according to TechCrunch.

Clicking “allow” lets Facebook generate new content from your camera roll, like “collages, recaps, AI restylings, or photo themes.” The platform explains that it would take media from your camera roll and upload it to its cloud on an ongoing basis to create ideas for you.

According to the message, Facebook will not use your media for ad targeting. However, by tapping “Allow”, you are also agreeing to Meta’s AI Terms of Service, which allow your photos and facial features to be analyzed by AI. This includes any people and objects in the photos, as well as the date when the photos were taken.

The terms also grant Meta the right to “retain and use” any personal information that you’ve shared with it in the process. The company doesn’t specify the nature of said data, but calls it any “information you submit as Prompts, Feedback, or other Content.”

Meta insists that the feature is entirely opt-in and can be turned off whenever the user wants.

“These suggestions are opt-in only and only shown to you – unless you decide to share them – and can be turned off at any time,” she continued. “Camera roll media may be used to improve these suggestions, but are not used to improve AI models in this test,” said Meta spokesperson Maria Cubeta.

Meta public affairs manager Ryan Daniels tells The Verge that it’s not currently training on your unpublished photos with this new feature. “[The Verge’s headline] implies we are currently training our AI models with these photos, which we aren’t. This test doesn’t use people’s photos to improve or train our AI models."

While Google explicitly says in its terms that it does not train generative AI models with personal data obtained from Google Photos, Meta’s AI terms remain vague, not specifying whether such unpublished photos can be used for training purposes.

The feature is currently being tested in the US and Canada.

Facebook used public posts of billions of its users dating back to 2007 to significantly improve its AI.