Facebook’s got a new feature that users are calling a “clear breach of privacy”.
It’s called ‘camera roll suggestions’, and it involves Meta asking to take a look at the photos on your phone… even the ones you haven’t posted!
The tool asks if you’ll allow “cloud processing” of your camera roll - basically, it wants permission to upload your camera roll to its cloud so its AI can scroll through and spit out suggestions like collages, birthday throwbacks, or themed posts.
It seems pretty useful, but only if you’re comfortable with how much access it’s really getting behind the scenes… or should I say, screens.
What it's looking at isn’t just what you’ve snapped, but the when, where, and what type of photo it is (panoramas, selfies, time lapses, etc). It can also see the pics you’ve specifically hearted in your favourites folder.
Now, Facebook reckons it all flies above board. The feature is optional, it won’t use your pics for ads, and you have to manually turn it on.
But their terms of service do say they can run your content through both automated (electronic) and manual (real people) reviews - including by third-party.
So, yeah, there’s a fair bit more going on behind the scenes than just a cute birthday post suggestion.
While the platform claims it is enabled by YOU, one Kiwi Redditor wasn’t convinced, posting a PSA claiming the feature was already switched on by default.
They wrote: “Meta is now accessing all of the photos on your phone and uploading them to their AI, regardless of whether you’ve shared them on Facebook... Seems a clear breach of the Privacy Act to me, but 🤷[shrug emoji].”
And if we’re being so honest, this one might be on us. You’d have to manually enable camera roll suggestions in your settings (which, let’s be honest, most people probably clicked “allow access” ages ago without thinking twice).
Either way, it’s worth checking, so here’s how to change your settings:
Go to Create Story at the top of your Feed
Tap the settings icon
Hit Camera roll settings
Toggle it on or off
Heads up: this setting applies to all devices linked to your account.
Tbh, Facebook isn’t doing anything that Apple or Google Photos haven’t been doing for YEARS.
We all know (at least I hope) that Apple also stores your pics in the cloud and makes cute little slideshows in the app - their latest growth in their Apple Intelligence features with iOS 26 only further shows the extent of our data and content that can be accessed in the background.
RELATED: The iPhone iOS 26 update will change the way we screenshot and shop forever
Google’s T&Cs are a bit more flexible, too - they can edit your photos, generate new versions, and share them with third-party companies they work with.
In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a brand new “privacy breach” as such, but it IS yet another reminder to actually read those pop-ups and check your settings once in a while.
If the thought of your camera roll turning into AI inspo freaks you out, flick the setting off.
Or if you’re really over it, maybe it’s time we store our memories back on the old, reliable USB stick - just in case.
