Facebook determined to use Meta AI — even on the private photos in your camera roll

Facebook is pretty sure you want AI-edited versions of every photo in your phone’s camera roll, whether or not they’re uploaded to Facebook.

That’s what you want, right?

The Verge reported that when users open the Facebook app on their phones and navigate to adding a photo or video from their camera roll to their Facebook Stories, a screen pops up that asks if they’d like to opt into “cloud processing to get creative ideas made for you from your camera roll.”

The popup, which TechCrunch screenshotted, reads:

“The best of your camera roll, curated for you: Get ideas like collages, recaps, AI restyling or themes like birthdays or graduations. 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. Only you see these suggestions. Your media won’t be used for ads targeting. We’ll check it for safety and integrity purposes.”

If you tap “Allow,” you’re agreeing to Meta’s AI Terms, which are, as terms tend to be, long. It allows Meta AI to analyze media and facial features and “use info like date and presence of people or objects.”

But not every user is facing this popup — it’s just a test, Meta spokesperson Maria Cubeta told TechCrunch.

“We’re exploring ways to make content sharing easier for people on Facebook by testing suggestions of ready-to-share and curated content from a person’s camera roll,” she said. “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.”

TechCrunch reported that Facebook is currently testing suggestions in the US and Canada, but it’s clear that not every user has spotted the pop-up — myself included.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Mashable.