Facebook Reportedly Asking Users Access to Private Media in Camera Roll for Meta AI Features

Facebook is reportedly asking users to share private media from their camera roll to Meta's cloud servers. As per the report, a pop-up message requesting access appears when users upload a photo or a video to Stories. The social media giant reportedly says that by giving access, Meta AI will suggest collages and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered edits that they can post in Stories. However, it will reportedly also allow the company to analyse facial data and the presence of objects and people in these media files.

Facebook Asks Access to Users' Camera Roll Media

According to a TechCrunch report, some users have begun seeing a new pop-up message when posting Stories on the Facebook app. Based on an image of the message shared by the publication, Meta wants to access media from a user's camera roll to recommend AI-powered collages, restyling tools, recaps, and occasion-based posts such as birthdays and anniversaries.

However, for Meta to be able to make these suggestions, users will have to give it access to their unshared images and videos that are saved on their devices. The message states, “To create ideas for you, we'll select media from your camera roll and upload it to our cloud on an ongoing basis, based on info like time, location or themes.”

To reassure users about any privacy concerns, the company adds that only the user will see these suggestions, and users' media will not be used for ad targeting. However, by accepting this, users will also agree to Meta's AI terms, which state that “Media and facial features can be analysed by Meta AI.” Additionally, the AI models will also collect data such as date and the presence of people or objects.

Meta's public affairs manager, Ryan Daniels, told The Verge that the company is not going to train its AI models with the unpublished photos and videos. The company's communications manager, Maria Cubeta, told the publication that the feature is entirely opt-in and that “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. Camera roll media may be used to improve these suggestions, but are not used to improve AI models in this test”

Additionally, the report stated that while the opt-in only lets Meta retrieve media files from the last 30 days, however, suggestions based on themes, such as pets and weddings, could include media older than 30 days.

On the surface, it appears Meta has checked all the privacy concern boxes that users might have. However, the company's phrasing makes it seem that the decision of not training AI models on users' camera roll only applies for this “test,” and this can change in the future with a wider rollout. At this time, Meta has not explicitly said that it will never train models on this media or use the data to improve them.