Meta AI assembled profiles of children from years of family posts

Meta AI prompted a mother of two with a suggested question about her young daughter after she posted a video of the pair singing in a car on Facebook. Clicking the prompt led the assistant to surface names, birth dates and videos for each of her children, including a photo her own mother had posted years earlier and an image she said she had long since deleted.

The assistant then asked where the user lived and pulled together older and newer posts to narrow down her past and current addresses. Meta told the Verge the feature never should have prompted questions like that, said it had missed the mark and that the underlying issue has been fixed. A spokesperson added that the AI only surfaced information the person asking could already access.

Meta AI launched in April 2024 and runs across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. The user said she is removing identifiable pictures and videos of her children and will ask friends to do the same, since their accounts can still be harvested for images.