New Delhi: There is one such AI that many people have welcomed into their digital lives, the Meta AI app, Meta’s standalone chatbot that works across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Now, what if the user is informed that this app has reportedly been exposing user conversations with the bot to the public?
Launching quietly in April, the Meta AI app includes a Discover field, a public wall where user interactions with the bot can be shared. While posting is technically optional, the problem is that many users are unaware that their chats, including sensitive questions and audio, are being made public for anyone to see, according to recent media reports.
The Meta AI app features a prominent Share button, but there’s no clear warning, no privacy prompt, and no noticeable notification telling users that their messages could end up on the public feed; if the user logged in with a public Instagram account, no matter how personal user AI searches are, they might be out there for anyone to see, as per some reports.
This has already led to a wave of oversharing of deeply sensitive posts, from confessions about tax evasion and legal advice involving named individuals to medical issues, court records, and even complete home addresses. And it doesn’t stop with the app. Meta AI is now built into platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram. But unlike regular messages, AI chats aren’t protected by end-to-end encryption.
Meta hasn’t offered clear fixes or significant design changes. It simply states that nothing is shared unless the user chooses to share it, but the interface makes it all too easy to do so without realizing the consequences. So far, the Meta AI app has clocked 6.5 million downloads, not huge by Meta standards, but big enough to fuel what feels like a growing PR crisis. One second, users are asking for travel tips; the next, trolls are posting job applications alongside bizarre, meme-fueled prompts.
To prevent this, users must manually dive into the settings, tap the profile icon, go to App settings > Data & Privacy > Manage your information, and then Select ‘Make all users visible this’. But this process is buried and far from intuitive. Whether Meta underestimated how people would use this feature or ignored the risk, the damage is underway. Until the time the assumption of privacy remains an assumption, cybersecurity experts strongly advise against using the app for anything remotely sensitive.
