If the Facebook app wants Meta’s AI to access my iPhone's camera roll, I might just delete it in protest

A Facebook pop-up is asking whether or not the user wants to: “Allow cloud processing to get creative ideas made for you from your camera roll?” According to TechCrunch, the notification appears when you create a new story on the Facebook app. However, having fired up the app myself, I’m not currently receiving the notification.

The pop-up continues to state: “To create ideas for you, we’ll select media from your camera roll and upload it to our cloud on an ongoing basis (...) Only you can see suggestions. Your media won’t be used for ads targeting.” But as TechCrunch points out, you’re also agreeing to Meta’s AI Terms, which appear to contradict the above, somewhat. Specifically, the Image Processing section states: “This processing allows us to offer innovative new features (...) and generate new content based on the image.”

As the embedded X post from Glenn Gabe (below) perfectly illustrates, the news hasn't been particularly well-received.

What stands out to me, within Meta's T&Cs, is the passage following the Personal Information section: “Do not share information that you don’t want the AIs to use and retain such as account identifiers, passwords, financial information, or other sensitive information.” This perfectly illustrates why I don’t think it’s acceptable for Facebook to essentially scrape your camera roll. It’s asking you to relinquish a great deal of control over your personal image library, and in my mind, that’s a huge privacy concern.

I’m sure most users have sensitive information hidden within their camera roll – perhaps more than they’d like to admit or even think to consider. How are you going to remember that invoice you screengrabbed or password you snapped for posterity (however ill-advised) three years ago? What I can’t work out is whether accepting these terms overrides those who have already chosen to limit Facebook’s access to their camera roll within their phone's settings.

Something else I can’t help but wonder is whether this will ever appear on Meta’s other social media leviathan, Instagram. After all, it’s a lot less casual than Facebook, and as such, has the potential to cause a huge stir among a creative community that’s already reeling from the unregulated impact of artificial intelligence.

I, for one, will not be granting Facebook’s AI access to my camera roll, but will you? Let me know in the comments below…

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I've got plenty more thoughts on AI, such as photography will live and die by how transparent we photographers choose to be about the images we create and why I think restoring this iconic photo with AI is heresy. Also, did you know that AI can identify a photo’s location?