Key Takeaways
- Uploading your photo to AI image generators can be fun, but it comes with significant data privacy risks.
- These AI tools might save your images and personal details like your IP address, potentially using them without your full control.
- Your face could be used for deepfakes or other abusive content, a particular concern for children’s photos.
- Once uploaded, deleting your data can be very difficult, especially if the service provider is outside the EU.
- It’s crucial to consider if the novelty is worth the potential exposure of your personal information.
AI image generators that turn your selfie into a toy or an avatar are a popular trend. It’s an amusing way to see yourself reimagined, but data protection advocates are sounding the alarm about the hidden risks.
The main issue? Many of these services save the photos you upload. They might also collect personal data like your IP or email address, meaning you reveal more than you intend and lose control over your image.
Mimikama, an Austrian fact-checking site, warns that users often don’t realize how much data they’re handing over. “In addition to your own image, data such as name, place of residence and hobbies can also be involved,” Katharina Grasl of the Bavarian Consumer Centre in Germany noted, as reported by The Star.
AI can glean a surprising amount from just one photo: your face, estimated age, posture, and even emotions. Recent research shows AI can even guess your location from photos without obvious landmarks.
In a worst-case scenario, these saved photos could be misused for deepfakes or other abusive content. This makes the AI photo trend especially troubling when children’s faces are involved.
Your photo might even pop up as a response to another user’s query to the AI. Consumer advocates also caution that this data could be exploited for phishing schemes or other criminal activities.
So why do people take these risks? Media researcher Claudia Riesmeyer suggests it’s often about self-presentation. These tools let you experiment with your identity, highlighting aspects you like and concealing others.
This can be particularly appealing for younger users. “For example, if someone wants to try out what they look like with blue hair, they can try it out on their avatar – without having to go to the hairdresser,” Riesmeyer explains.
By uploading your image, you might also be helping to train the AI. Data protection experts worry that these photos could be fed into biometric facial recognition systems, allowing AI to identify individuals.
Hamburg’s data protection commissioner, Thomas Fuchs, recently warned about the serious consequences of such systems, which can pick out individuals from crowds. These systems have recently been banned in the European Union.
What happens to your photo largely depends on the usage rights the AI service grants itself. Your image could end up circulating online indefinitely, possibly with personal details attached.
Deleting your data can be difficult, sometimes impossible, especially if the companies are based outside the EU where regulations like GDPR provide rights to information and deletion.
A crucial piece of advice: never upload photos of friends or others to an AI image generator without their explicit consent. It’s also wise to avoid sharing AI-generated images of yourself as well-known toy figures on social media.
If you post an image of yourself as a character from a famous franchise, the trademark owner could see it as a rights violation. As Mimikama points out, claiming “it’s just a joke” won’t protect you from legal notices.
Before you join the fun, the Bavarian Consumer Centre advises asking yourself if it’s worth disclosing your data for a fleeting digital image. Children, especially, should be made aware of these risks and supervised.
If a child’s image is misused, it’s important to secure evidence, such as screenshots. Then, contact the provider and, if necessary, involve the police.
