Meta’s Muse Image uses public Instagram photos for AI without consent

Meta ↗ 2.47% on Tuesday rolled out Muse Image, its first in-house AI image generation model built by Meta Superintelligence Labs, immediately igniting a privacy firestorm after users discovered the tool can pull photos from public Instagram accounts to generate AI images of real people — without notifying them or requiring their consent.

How It Works

Muse Image is available for free on the Meta AI app, Instagram Stories, and WhatsApp direct messages, with plans to expand to Facebook and Messenger later this year. The model can interpret complex prompts, blend multiple photos, and let users edit generated images through sketches or annotations. It also powers more than 30 new AI effects for Instagram Stories in the United States.cnbc+2

The feature drawing the sharpest criticism allows anyone to tag a public Instagram profile in a prompt, at which point Meta AI pulls that person's photos to generate new images using their likeness. "Whether you want to design a custom event invitation, mock up a collaborative creative concept, or generate a personalized graphic, tagging a username lets Meta AI use public photos to build a visual that's ready to post," Meta wrote in its announcement.wired+1

Opt-Out, Not Opt-In

Public Instagram accounts are automatically enrolled in the system by default. Users who want to prevent their content from being used must navigate to their profile settings, find the "Sharing and reuse" tab, and toggle off the option labeled "Allow people to use your content on Instagram and with AI features on Meta".welcome+2

Instagram's help center states that users "will not be notified about content created using AI features at Meta," meaning someone's photos could be remixed without their knowledge. Additionally, already-existing AI images made from a user's content will not be deleted even after opting out.wired

A Familiar Pattern

The opt-out approach fits a recurring pattern that has drawn regulatory scrutiny to Meta in the past. The company faced investigations and fines from European data protection authorities over its use of user data for AI training without explicit consent. Critics argue the new feature compounds those concerns by extending data use beyond training to direct content generation involving identifiable individuals.

Meta described Muse Image as a competitive response to OpenAI's GPT Images and Google's Alphabet Inc. ↗ 0.53% image generation tools. The model, originally codenamed Mango, was led by Alexandr Wang at Meta Superintelligence Labs and replaces technology Meta previously licensed from the AI startup Midjourney. A video generation model, Muse Video, is expected to follow.nytimes+2