Facebook tests AI access to your camera roll for content suggestions

Facebook is testing a new feature that allows Meta AI to access users’ camera rolls to generate content suggestions, even for photos that haven’t been uploaded to the platform yet. The feature, currently being tested in the US and Canada, represents a significant expansion of how social media companies can access personal data, potentially raising new privacy concerns as Meta seeks to compete for younger users who have been abandoning the platform.

What you should know: Users encountering Facebook’s Story feature are being prompted to enable “cloud processing” through a pop-up that grants Meta AI access to their entire camera roll.

• If users click “Allow,” Facebook will upload photos from their device to Meta’s servers on an “ongoing basis” for AI analysis and content generation.
• The AI can analyze facial data of friends and family, location information, and other metadata from photos to create collages, recaps, AI restylings, and themed content around events like “birthdays or graduations.”
• According to Meta AI’s Terms of Service, this grants the company broad access to analyze personal photo data once users agree to the feature.

Privacy controls available: Users who opt in can later disable the feature through Facebook’s settings if they change their minds.

• In Facebook Settings, users can navigate to Preferences and find “Camera Roll Sharing Suggestions” with two separate toggles.
• One toggle controls whether Facebook can make suggestions based on camera roll content, while another permits AI-generated versions of photos.
• Users can disable either or both features independently.

What Meta promises: The company has provided some assurances about data usage limitations, though the scope remains broad.

• Photos accessed through this feature won’t be used for ad targeting purposes, according to the pop-up messages.
• A Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch that while AI will make creative suggestions based on camera roll photos, “these photos are not used to improve AI models in this test.”
• However, Meta has been using publicly available Facebook data, including posts, photos, and comments, to train its AI since 2007.

The bigger picture: This feature appears designed to attract younger users who have been leaving Facebook for other platforms.

• Facebook experienced an almost 40% drop in teen users between 2014 and 2022—the largest decline of any social media platform, even surpassing older platforms like Tumblr.
• The company has been testing various new features aimed at drawing Gen Z and Millennial audiences back to the platform.
• The camera roll access feature could help Facebook compete with platforms that offer more sophisticated AI-powered content creation tools.

User reaction: The new feature has already generated criticism across social media platforms, with users expressing concerns about privacy overreach on X, Bluesky, and Reddit.