Meta’s AI chatbot promises help but raises privacy concerns with long-term memory files tracking your behavior and preferences.
Meta wants to be your digital assistant, advisor, and maybe even friend. The company’s new AI chatbot is designed to help users generate messages, answer questions, and make personalized recommendations. But behind the helpful facade lies something far more troubling: a data collection mechanism with virtually no guardrails.
Meta, a company already infamous for pushing the limits of user privacy, is venturing into the largely unregulated world of generative AI, and it’s doing so with data buckets at the ready. While Meta AI may promise convenience, it comes at the expense of your personal information – yet again.
Meta’s track record
Let’s examine Meta’s track record before exploring its new AI assistant. In testimony before Congress, Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former director of Global Public Policy for Facebook, claimed that Meta used teens’ personal data to determine their “emotional state” and targeted advertising to them at moments of depression or vulnerability. Essentially, Meta was collecting enough information on its users to make assumptions about their mental health and then wielded that intel for marketing purposes.
The ethics of such practices, or lack thereof, speak for themselves. However, the incident is also part of a much larger pattern. The congressional inquiry came on the heels of a major legal blow: Meta was ordered to pay a $1.4 billion settlement after being sued by the state of Texas for collecting biometric data from millions of users without their consent, primarily via Facebook’s now-retired facial recognition system.
That lawsuit followed the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which Meta allowed the political consulting firm to harvest personal data from 87 million users without consent. The fallout was global. In 2022, Meta agreed to a $725 million settlement in one of the largest privacy class-action lawsuits in U.S. history.
These are just a few entries in a lengthy rap sheet. Over the years, Meta has paid billions in fines to regulators in the U.S., EU, and beyond for violations of user privacy. The company has consistently shown a willingness to exploit user information first and deal with the consequences later. And now, Meta is forging its way into the insufficiently regulated world of AI—with little oversight and much for the taking.
A troubling precedent
Excessive data collection should concern users of any chatbot, but Meta’s is positioned to be particularly egregious, raising red flags right out of the gate.
Unlike many of its competitors, Meta’s chatbot doesn’t just store your conversations in a traditional chat log. It also creates a separate “memory” file, where it logs long-term information about you: your interests, preferences, patterns, and possibly even emotional cues based on language use. The goal? To “better understand you” and tailor your experience. And even if you erase your chat history, this won’t erase the memory file, which can only be deleted if a user goes out of their way to find it—or even knows it exists at all.
The introduction of memory files marks a pivotal—and potentially perilous—shift in how AI interacts with our personal information. Unlike traditional search engines or AI tools that operate with more ephemeral data use, Meta’s approach hinges on persistent, evolving profiles built from long-term behavioral tracking. This means that every question you ask, every topic you explore, and every preference you reveal can be added to a growing dossier tied to your identity.
And that’s just what we know about. As with many of Meta’s products, there’s minimal transparency around how this data will be used in the long run, who within the company has access to it, or what additional parties might eventually benefit. Meta has insisted it will not use AI interactions to serve ads—for now. But given the company’s history of shifting its privacy policies with little notice, skepticism is warranted.
How to protect your personal information
Meta’s chatbot may just be the latest example of AI-driven data collection, but it’s hardly the only one. As generative AI shows up in everything from search engines and customer support to writing tools and health apps, it’s getting harder—and more important—to protect your personal data.
Start by being selective about what information you share. Avoid entering personal details like your full name, birth date, address, or financial information into AI tools, particularly those embedded in social media platforms. Even casual conversations can reveal patterns that feed into a broader behavioral profile.
If you’re using an AI assistant tied to a personal account, take time to explore its settings. Some platforms store chat history and memory files separately; deleting one won’t automatically erase the other. On Meta’s platforms, for example, chat history can be cleared from the message interface, but AI memory must be manually deleted in a separate section of the settings menu—assuming users know where to look. That data may persist across sessions and devices until it’s explicitly removed.
To reduce exposure, consider logging out of AI tools that stay connected to your account between sessions, limiting integration with other apps or social platforms, and turning off ad personalization when those options are available. While these steps won’t eliminate data tracking entirely, they can reduce the amount of information collected and how easily it’s tied back to you.
Finally, keep an eye on platform updates. Privacy policies and data practices often change with little notice, and companies aren’t always transparent about what new features might be collecting or sharing. A small setting update or feature rollout can significantly expand what’s being tracked – without users ever realizing it.
Final thoughts
Meta’s new chatbot may offer convenience, but it also demands caution. Without vigilance, users risk trading away their privacy for personalized replies and giving Meta yet another window into their digital lives. As AI tools become more integrated into daily life, the burden of protecting personal data increasingly falls to the individual.
