Facebook continuously uploads smartphone photos to its own servers, even when users do not want to share them with the platform themselves.
Meta wants to look at all the photos a smartphone user takes. When creating a Story on the social network, a pop-up suggests that the app can make creative suggestions if the user subscribes to cloud processing. In practice, through this pop-up, you give Meta permission to continuously upload all photos taken by the phone camera to the Facebook servers, including metadata such as time and location.
Thanks to European regulations, Meta has not yet attempted to roll out this extensive permission via the Facebook app in the EU. However, it shows how Meta views the role of Facebook, its users, and the concept of privacy.
According to the terms and conditions, Meta will use the photos for facial and object recognition, among other things. The photos and metadata will be used to propose so-called creative ideas to the user.
Unrestricted Access
The unrestricted access to the smartphone’s camera roll is, of course, particularly interesting for Meta. Competitors can only apply their AI training algorithms to photos that users voluntarily share. If Meta can persuade enough users to give extensive permission, whether intentionally or not, for sharing all photos, the company will have a much more extensive dataset available.
Those who subscribe immediately give Meta the right to retain and use the photos for personalized AI output. The feature is reportedly being rolled out as a test in the US and Canada, according to a spokesperson.