How to Opt Out of Instagram and Facebook Using Your Posts for AI
Instagram and Facebook are using your photos and posts to train AI, and only European users can opt out.
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Meta's new AI chatbot tools across Facebook, Instagram and other products in the Meta universe provide a variety of information, from shopping assistance and recipe suggestions through to image generation. And like all AI tools it needs data to learn from in order to generate answers to questions or create those images. Your Facebook and Instagram posts are a big part of where that data comes from.
While Meta makes it clear in its privacy policy that it uses posts -- including your photos -- to train its AI models, that privacy policy isn't especially easy to find, and while people in Europe can opt out, those of you in the US will have your posts used for AI training, whether you like it or not.
Here's what you need to know and, crucially, how you can opt out of Meta using your Instagram and Facebook posts to train its AI models.
Does Facebook and Instagram use my posts to train its AI?
Yes. As Meta states under the Where does Meta get training information? section of its privacy policy, "We use information that is publicly available online ... [and] information shared on Meta's products and services. This information could be things such as posts or photos and their captions."
What isn't used, the company states, is any information shared privately in direct messages. The usage only applies to publicly shared posts.
How can I stop Meta using my photos for its AI?
Right now it looks like it's only possible to opt out of this in Europe. European users -- including myself -- can go to the Settings page on the Instagram or Facebook app, then go to About > Privacy Policy where there'll be a new box with information regarding Meta AI including a link to an opt-out form called Right to object.
Clicking the form will take you to a new page where you can select your country of residence, input your email address and give a (required) reason on "how this processing impacts you." Meta says on the form that it will "review objection requests in accordance with relevant data protection laws." This is slightly redundant -- and confusing -- language, as Europe's strict GDPR privacy laws mean Meta is obliged to honor all requests, regardless of reason.
I used this tool myself, citing simply "copyright" as my reason. Within minutes I received an email confirming that my objection had been honored.
Can US users opt out?
At the moment, no. Visiting the same privacy policy page doesn't show the same additional box around AI or provide links to an opt-out form, and Meta confirmed that there isn't an option for users outside of Europe to stop their posts and photos being used to train its AI models.
"We don't currently offer a feature for people to opt-out of their information from our products and services being used to train our AI models," Meta told me, while acknowledging that European users are able to opt out as per GDPR policy.
Meta isn't bound by the same strict GDPR laws in the US as it is in Europe, meaning it doesn't legally have to offer users any way to opt out. Whether the company changes its stance and adjusts its opt-out policy remains to be seen.