Meta AI has been previously accused of posting sensitive user information tied to their accounts. Apparently, even your Camera Roll is not safe from it.
If you’ve just opened the Facebook app to create a Story, you may have been greeted with a new question of whether you’d like “creative ideas made for you” based on pictures from your camera roll. Meta AI is potentially now tapping into and uploading your personal photos to the cloud to create AI-enhanced Story ideas.
What the Feature Really Does and What You’re Agreeing To
Facebook Is Quietly Using Your Camera Roll With Meta AI
Joshua Hoehne/Unsplash
In response to a recent TechCrunch article, users have started seeing a pop-up that suggests turning on this feature, which Facebook refers to as “cloud processing.” Although Meta maintains that the content will not be made publicly available without your action, the tool will automatically create images using your personal images if you choose to.
When you enable this feature, you are granting Facebook the ability to scan your camera roll every time, upload some images to Meta’s cloud servers, and pass them through its AI image generator. Facebook claims it uses parameters such as time, place, and topics to determine which photos to work on.
Here’s the catch, according to PC Gamer. Although the AI-driven suggestions aren’t accessible to anyone else, they’re still being generated automatically behind the scenes. You’re basically giving access to your entire library of media unless you change your settings.
This only pertains to Facebook’s mobile iOS and Android apps right now. If you only have Facebook on desktop or via the browser, you’re not affected.
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Most Users Didn’t Get a Warning
Some users report seeing AI-generated versions of their own photos in their Story suggestions without ever seeing a permission pop-up. This could mean one of two things: either you tapped “agree” without noticing, or Facebook enabled it automatically under the guise of prior consent.
For users in the EU, they could have been sent an email inviting them to choose to disable the feature. But doing nothing may have been taken as consent, bringing to light again Meta’s habitual default opt-in practice of sensitive data handling.
How to Turn Off Facebook’s Camera Roll Cloud Processing
If you don’t feel right about having Facebook look at and upload your own photos, even just for Story ideas, you can turn off the feature in a snap:
To take it a step further, you can remove Facebook’s photo access completely through your phone’s privacy settings:
- iOS: Settings > Privacy > Photos > Facebook and choose None.
- Android: Settings > Apps > Facebook > Permissions and switch off Media & Files access.
Last week, Facebook users criticized Meta for banning Facebook groups without any warning. The company said that there was a technical error when the suspension happened.
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