Facebook arbitrarily views users' photos

Users can choose to turn off 2 image suggestion features on Facebook. Photo: ZDNet .

Meta is facing a new wave of controversy after some users discovered that Facebook can scan their entire phone camera roll without their consent. The discovery has many worried because it directly relates to privacy, which is already a sensitive issue for the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

According to the feedback, in the Facebook settings section, there are two new buttons that appear and are set to on by default. These options allow the application to make “custom sharing suggestions” based on the image data in the personal library. The controversy lies in the fact that most users claim that they have never seen any permission notice or pop-up window to clearly explain this mechanism.

When these two options are enabled, Facebook will access and analyze the photo data in the user's library, including photos that have never been uploaded to the platform. The system can recognize the date, face, object or context, and from there suggest albums, create collages, summary posts or even AI-processed versions. In other words, the app works not only with what users actively share, but also extends to the entire photo archive stored on the device.

In theory, Meta has always requested access to the camera roll to upload photos, videos , or send files via text. But the difference this time is that the company went further than necessary, analyzing images that users never chose to share. This is why the tech community believes that Meta has crossed the usual boundaries of privacy.

For its part, the social media giant explained that the suggestions generated by its photo scanning mechanism are only visible to account owners and will not be used for targeted advertising purposes. However, this argument is not enough to allay concerns. The default setting without prior notice has led many to believe that Meta is experimenting with a less transparent way of collecting data.

Currently, users can still turn this feature off. In the Settings and Privacy section, select Settings and find the Camera Roll Sharing Suggestions section. Next, turn off the two suggestions including “Custom sharing suggestions from your photo library” and “Get suggestions from your photo library when you’re browsing Facebook”. This way, the platform will not use private photos as suggestions in future sessions.

Source: https://znews.vn/facebook-lai-tu-y-su-dung-hinh-anh-nguoi-dung-post1581971.html