Facebook’s New Collages Use Your Private Photos for AI Training

The drive to integrate advanced artificial intelligence is changing the fundamentals of social networking. Facebook is currently rolling out a significant new opt-in feature that enables its AI to function as a personal photo editor, suggesting collages and themed edits based on the pictures stored in your phone’s private camera roll. The tool is now available to users in the U.S. and Canada.

On paper, this feature sounds pretty useful. The AI ​​performs the tedious task of curating photos, generating creative ideas for recaps or themed posts that appear ready-to-share in the user’s Stories and Feed. It is really convenient to avoid wasting a lot of time selecting the “perfect” picture.

Facebook can use your unshared camera roll to train AI

That said, the tech behind this system are generating controversy. To analyze and suggest these edits, the feature requires the user to enable “cloud processing,” which involves uploading unshared photos and videos from the device to Meta‘s cloud. Once this access is granted, Meta’s AI analyzes the media to summarize contents, identify people and objects, and generate new edits.

This process provides Meta with a wealth of private, unshared data. Meta explicitly states that this private media is not used for ad targeting. However, the company’s policy is clear: Meta will use this media to train and improve its AI systems if the user interacts with the generated content. Specifically, this can occur by sharing the suggested photo or by further editing it using Meta’s AI tools.

This conditional use of private media for AI training raises a significant point of transparency. While the initial suggestions are private, the simple act of choosing to post an AI-generated collage effectively converts that private data into training material for Meta’s AI. This policy stands in notable contrast to other data use; Meta’s separate plan to use conversations with its AI to personalize ads in December will offer users no opt-out choice at all.

Balancing privacy and convenience

Fortunately, there’s an option that lets you disable the feature. You can find it under Facebook settings (Preferences > Camera Roll Sharing Suggestions > “Cloud processing” toggle). However, as you can imagine, you will no longer be able to enjoy the benefits of AI-powered collage suggestions.

Basically, users who value the creative assistance must accept the explicit risk that their unshared photos can become part of the AI ​​training data set upon sharing or editing the AI’s output. On the other hand, those prioritizing data privacy can simply leave the feature disabled or even restrict the Facebook app’s camera roll access entirely through their device’s system settings.