Do you like Meta AI’s suggestions on your Facebook feed? Facebook now plans to utilise its Meta AI for suggesting new collages for your photos stored on your phone. But the idea is not to help the user get unique photo collages and edits – Facebook plans to utilise this feature for training its AI models as well.
Facebook-parent Meta is rolling out a new Artificial Intelligence-based collage and photo editing tool for Facebook users in the US and Canada. The feature is designed to utilise AI to automatically curate and generate “fun collages and edits” from a user’s camera roll, which is expected to lure Facebook users to opt-in. However, using this service brings up concerns regarding data privacy and AI training.
Is Facebook using your phone photos to train AI?
Dubbed as ‘Camera Roll Sharing Suggestions’, the new functionality scans a user’s camera roll for the best photos and videos, uploads them to the cloud for processing, and then uses AI to suggest creative outputs. These suggestions, which can include photo collages, recaps, AI restyling, or themed edits for events like birthdays and trips, appear automatically in Stories and Feed.
According to Meta, the AI works continuously in the background once a user opts in, generating ‘potential content that remains private unless the user explicitly chooses to share it’. However, the company has clarified the policy surrounding AI training, stating that media from the camera roll is not used to improve AI models unless the suggested content is shared publicly or edited using Meta’s other AI tools.
This means that for users who share the Meta AI-generated collages or edits, their images become part of the dataset used to train and improve Meta’s AI algorithms.
How to enable/disable Facebook Camera Roll Sharing Suggestion
For the new AI collage tool, Facebook has provided a specific setting within the app for management.
– Users can opt in or out by navigating to their profile picture.
– Then proceed to Settings and Privacy > Settings > Preferences > Camera Roll Sharing Suggestions.
Users, who are highly sensitive to their images being used for AI training, are advised to either avoid enabling the feature entirely or restrict Facebook’s access to the camera roll within their phone’s operating system settings. The new feature is currently available only to users in the United States and Canada.
