Meta's Muse Image Uses Public Instagram Photos Without Consent
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- Meta launched Muse Image, an AI tool that can generate pictures using other people's public Instagram profile photos without telling them, per the BBC's report on the announcement.
- Foxglove advocacy director Donald Campbell told the BBC the feature is an "obvious recipe for disaster," citing a recent "catalogue of harms from non-consensual AI-altered images" on social platforms.
- Privacy International said Muse Image is "the latest sign AI companies see people's images and data as raw material to be exploited" and warned of a "privacy landmine."
- Meta says users can opt out even with public accounts, but the setting lives in a separate menu — Instagram's "Sharing and Reuse" section — rather than alongside standard account privacy controls.
- Muse Image is available now through the Meta AI app, web browser, WhatsApp, and Instagram Stories for US users; Meta said it will extend to Facebook, Messenger, and an advertiser-facing tool, with a video-generation version "reportedly in development."
- Ofcom is already investigating X over Grok's role in creating and sharing non-consensual AI-altered images of real people, a regulatory backdrop Meta's new tool now lands in.
Why it matters: The opt-out lives in a buried sub-menu unrelated to account privacy controls, meaning most public-account users will remain enrolled by default — a friction-by-design choice that critics including Foxglove argue will replicate the non-consensual image harms regulators are already probing on rival platforms.
