Instagram / Facebook Is Collecting Your Photos & Posts For AI - How To Opt Out?
Do you live in the UK or EU? If you do, did you see a notification pop up or get an email about Meta’s new AI changes if you use Meta’s apps? Soon (at time of recording), Meta's updating its privacy policy to use your data to train their AI. If you’re in the UK or EU, you can opt out, but if you’re elsewhere, it's a bit more complicated.
What’s Happening with Meta’s New Policy
So, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced that they'll start using your public posts, photos, captions, data from third-party services, and even your chats with their AI chatbot to train their AI models. But don't worry—they're not using your private messages, so I guess it’s okay right? WRONG.
Starting June 26, 2024, this new policy means your data from as far back as 2007 will be used to train Meta's AI tools. This includes tools like shopping assistance and recipe suggestions to image generation. The data from your posts helps Meta's AI learn and improve.
I know that plenty of my viewers don’t even have these social media accounts, and likely aren’t concerned. But millions of people, including myself, do have accounts on these platforms and as such, we are affected. Since AI is being introduced to lots of platforms this year, these kind of stories aren’t unique - so subscribe to my channel if you want to keep up to date on these kind of privacy topics.
Why This Matters
Why is this Meta AI thing such a big deal? Don’t come for me in the comments, but I truly think that AI definitely has a place - and it can be extremely helpful for things like translations, brainstorming, generating a list of hotels that fit a specific criteria for your autumn trip to Scotland (I’m so excited)… it also can give us false information, really creepy looking images, and can be used for invasive deepfakes.
Artists and photographers have serious concerns about AI being used to learn their skills and profit off their talents - I’ve seen it myself at conventions - artist alley vendor halls are being used to hock AI generated merch - pretty cringe.
Many artists are removing all of their original art off Instagram to protest this change, switching to an app called Cara to promote their art. But that doesn’t seem to have had any effect on Meta’s plans. Artists are worried this will affect their work and livelihood.
For non-artists though, the idea that our personal media and posts are being used to train an AI model is unsettling, especially since it’s without our consent. Even though it’s only training on public posts, it feels like an invasion of privacy, and I think that feeling is completely valid.
With the policy going into affect later this month, a ton of people are talking about it. People in the UK and EU have received notifications about this change, to which they can opt out. But for everyone else, especially those of us in the US, kinda feels like we have to just accept it. We do have a couple of options though.
How to Opt Out if You’re in the UK or EU
If you're in the UK or EU, you're in luck. Thanks to strong privacy laws like the GDPR, you can opt out. Here's how:
Head to the Settings Page: Open Instagram or Facebook and navigate to the Settings page. Then go to About > Privacy Policy.
Find the Opt-Out Form: Look for the new box with information regarding Meta AI, including a link to an opt-out form called Right to Object.
Fill Out the Form: Click the form, select your country of residence, input your email address, and give a reason for opting out. If you want to copy / paste some “reasons”, I’ve seen people simply put “copyright”, I’ve also seen long winded explainers shared on reddit, so there are plenty of examples online.
Confirm Your Decision: After submitting the form, you'll receive a one-time password (OTP) via email. Enter this OTP to confirm your decision.
Wait for Confirmation: Meta will review your submission and send you an email to confirm whether your opt-out request has been accepted.
EU users have reported that Meta responds and accepts their requests pretty quick, but some have faced rejections, which shouldn't happen under GDPR laws. Advocacy groups are already filing complaints to enforce stricter compliance. One of these is called NOYB or None Of Your Business, an advocacy group that launched several complaints in the EU.
Challenges with the Opt-Out Process
But one of the issues, even with opting out, is that Meta might be using posts that mention or tag you, if the person who made those posts hasn’t opted out. So tell your fam and friends under GDPR protections to opt out too.
No GDPR?
So what happens if you’re in the USA? Or just NOT in the UK or EU? We don’t get a form. If you go to the link provided, it tells you that forms only available for specific regions. So then, I thought… ok, what if I change my region? Here I was thinking I could trick Facebook into thinking I actually live in the UK, so I changed my country of residence on my bio and within the settings, changed my language to UK English, and I also logged into Facebook via a different PC with a VPN turned on and tunneling to London, in an incognito browser. It still wouldn’t let me access the form. I’m so annoyed.
I couldn’t find a way to get to this dang form. GRR! Even the privacy policy page looks different, and we never received a notification about the AI changes.
But maybe my theory of telling Facebook “that I moved to the UK” will get other people to theorize a way to “trick” Facebook into thinking we fall under GDPR regulations. What I tried didn’t work, but hypothetically… maybe there’s a way.
What to Do if You’re Outside the UK or EU
For those of us not in the UK or EU, there’s no direct way to opt out. But if you have found that their AI is already collecting info about you, which is pretty easy to do if you ask it’s chatbot questions about you, then you can request Meta delete personal info from third parties.
Open Instagram: Using the AI chatbot, ask it if it knows you. It knew me and it replied with a little blurb it found about what I do. So then I asked it for my birthday, and it gave me the data it was able to find on Shannon Morse’s birthday. I screenshot these answers, because I’ll need them for later.
Go to your profile and tap the hamburger icon. Scroll all the way down to Help > It’s Something Else.
Navigate to AI Information: Under "Featured Topics," select About AIs on Instagram. Then, click the link How Meta uses information for generative AI models.
Submit a Request: Under "Privacy and Generative AI," click Learn more and submit requests here. Choose I want to delete any personal information from third parties used for building and improving AI at Meta. Fill out the necessary details and hit Send.
After submitting your request, Meta will review it and let you know via email if your objection is approved.
”I Do Not Consent” Posts
The “I do not consent” post isn’t valid. Lastly, those “I own the copyright and don’t consent” posts you’ve probably seen all your friends reposting on Instagram and Facebook? Yeah, sound familiar? I live in the land of fanart in anime communities so I have ton so colleagues who’ve been making these posts. TLDR: Meta doesn’t care. Unless you have access to a form or just delete your account entirely, they are within their legal jurisdiction to use our posts for AI learning whether you post a chainmail picture saying you don’t consent or not. This is our generations email chainmail letter.
Legal action is being taken by advocacy groups and AI overall is under fire by lots of legislators - for example, after Scarlett Johansson ousted OpenAI for copying her voice without her consent, the Digital Replica Contracts Act in New York State passed the assembly unanimously.
Meta’s new policy is a big change, and while it feels like our control over personal data is slipping, there are steps we can take to push back. We should also pay attention to who we’re voting into office and ensure our legislators are bringing bills to the state or federal government to limit AI’s access. If you’re in the UK or EU, make sure to opt out, you already have those protections under GDPR, so take advantage of it, and for everyone else, follow the steps to prevent third-party data usage at the least.
And if this is the last straw, then deleting your account entirely is a move you can absolutely make. Bye yall!
