Outcry as Meta lets AI use public Instagram profile pictures
Image: BBC News
Your Instagram profile picture could soon become raw material for someone else's AI-generated images — and Meta says that's by design.
The feature sits inside Muse Image, Meta's text-to-image tool available through the Meta AI app, web browser, WhatsApp and Instagram Stories for US users. It can spin up pictures using other people's profile photos, and critics say users are often none the wiser.
Advocacy group Foxglove called it an "obvious recipe for disaster." Director Donald Campbell pointed to "a catalogue of harms from non-consensual AI-altered images" seen in just the past year. "It is hard to see why Mark Zuckerberg thinks facilitating yet more of this creepy image manipulation is a good idea," he said.
Regulators are circling. Ofcom is already investigating X over Grok's role in creating non-consensual AI images of real people. Privacy International said the feature shows "AI companies see people's images and data as raw material to be exploited."
Meta says a dedicated setting — separate from normal privacy controls — lets users opt out even with a public account. But campaigners argue consent buried in settings is not real consent.
As AI image tools spread, the fight over who controls your likeness is only intensifying. Expect louder calls for rules that put permission front and centre.