Meta is facing a fierce backlash over its new AI tool, Muse Image, which can generate pictures using other people’s Instagram profile photos without telling them. The feature, available through the Meta AI app, web browser, WhatsApp and Instagram Stories for US users, allows anyone to create AI-altered images by blending public profile pictures into new creations with a few lines of text.
Donald Campbell, advocacy director at the tech justice non-profit Foxglove, called it an “obvious recipe for disaster”. “We’ve already seen a catalogue of harms from non-consensual AI-altered images on social platforms just in the past year,” he told the BBC. “It is hard to see why Mark Zuckerberg thinks facilitating yet more of this creepy image manipulation is a good idea.”
“Meta faces backlash as Muse Image uses public Instagram profile pics without consent; campaigners call it a 'recipe for disaster'.”
Privacy International also criticised the feature, telling the BBC it was “the latest sign AI companies see people’s images and data as raw material to be exploited”. One user on X wrote: “Pulling real users into generated photos without explicit consent is a privacy landmine waiting to detonate.”
Meta said a dedicated setting, separate from account privacy controls, allows users to opt out even if they have a public account. To do so, users must go to Instagram’s settings menu, select “Sharing and Reuse” and switch off “Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features at Meta” for posts and reels. These settings only appear for public accounts – private accounts are already unable to be shared.
The feature is likely to face heightened scrutiny as regulators and campaigners raise concerns about AI-generated images. Ofcom is currently investigating X over Grok’s role in creating and sharing non-consensual AI-altered images of real people.
To test the tool, a BBC reporter asked Muse AI to make it look like they were driving a car. The AI happily obliged, though it failed to notice the steering wheel should be on the right in a UK car. In a blog post, Meta said the tool uses “advanced reasoning to understand complex prompts, seamlessly blending multiple photos into high-quality creations you can download and share anywhere”. It is free for “everyday creation”.
With Meta entering an already crowded market of text-to-image generators, its use of Instagram profile pictures is new – and powerful. But as the outcry grows, the question remains: how long before this “privacy landmine” detonates?