Meta’s data tracking under scrutiny with new AI chatbot

Meta’s launch of a personalised AI chatbot and recent Senate testimony by former employee Sarah Wynn-Williams have reignited scrutiny over the company’s handling of user data.

Wynn-Williams, who has authored a book on her time at Meta, told the U.S. Senate that the company could detect emotional states such as helplessness and self-worth issues among users, particularly teenagers, and share that data with advertisers.

“[Wynn-Williams] said the company was letting advertisers know when the teens were depressed so they could be served an ad at the best time. As an example, she suggested that if a teen girl deleted a selfie, advertisers might see that as a good time to sell her a beauty product as she may not be feeling great about her appearance. They also targeted teens with ads for weight loss when young girls had concerns around body confidence.”
— Business and Human Rights Resource Center

Separately, Meta’s new chatbot relies on user history from Facebook and Instagram to personalise responses and logs conversations to improve performance. According to The Washington Post, this approach 'pushes the limits on privacy in ways that go much further than rivals ChatGPT, from OpenAI, or Gemini, from Google.'

While Meta has long drawn attention for its data practices, privacy debates have often faded from public view, in part due to user preference for convenience and Meta’s relative silence post-Cambridge Analytica. Still, its platforms continue to collect a wide range of user data.

A 2015 study by researchers at the University of Cambridge and Stanford University showed Facebook likes could predict users' psychological profiles more accurately than friends or family.

Meta’s scale allows it to combine even seemingly trivial user actions into detailed behavioural predictions. The company states that unsafe or inappropriate content won’t be stored and users can delete saved information, but critics remain wary of how such data might be used, particularly for ad targeting and profiling.

As Meta integrates AI deeper into its products, questions about data use and privacy are likely to persist.

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