Meta might be scanning your phone’s entire camera roll
September 2, 2025
PA
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Meta could be scanning your phone’s entire camera roll without you realising or giving explicit consent.
Users have now noticed that Meta has switched on two toggles in their Facebook settings which are allowing “custom sharing” of their personal camera roll, but claim not to have been notified of it.
While the feature is active, Facebook will use your camera roll images, including dates on them, people and objects in photos, to suggest albums, collages, re-cap posts or AI versions of your images.
The technology company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, requires access to camera rolls for uploading, posting or sending images and videos, but this would mean it is scanning images that you have not uploaded but are on your phone.
The photo suggestions are only visible to you and won’t be used for targeted advertising.
How to turn it off
- Open the Facebook app and make sure you’re signed into your account.
- On the mobile app click the top right hand side icon which will bring up the Menu section.
- Find the Settings and Privacy section.
- Select Settings.
- Scroll down to find “Camera roll sharing suggestions” and tap it. This will take you to a preference page with a few toggles.
- Turn off both toggled labelled “Custom sharing suggestions from your camera roll” and “Get camera roll suggestions when you’re browsing Facebook”.
- If the toggles are blue and the circle is pushed to the right, they’re one, meaning Meta is actively processing and retaining your photos. You can turn them off by tapping the toggles, pushing the white button to the right which will turn the toggle grey, de-activating camera roll sharing.
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