Meta AI's Health Data Request Raises Major Privacy Concerns

United States - Ekhbary News Agency

Meta's Superintelligence Labs recently launched Muse Spark, a new generative AI model designed to answer health questions, with planned integration across Facebook and Instagram. Despite Meta's claims of physician-curated training data, Muse Spark has sparked privacy concerns by directly prompting users to upload raw health data, such as fitness tracker numbers, glucose monitor readings, or lab reports. The AI offers to "calculate trends, flag patterns, and visualize them," a feature that, while potentially useful, raises significant questions about data security and user consent.

Experts warn that general-purpose AI chatbots, including Meta AI, are not compliant with HIPAA, the U.S. law protecting sensitive patient information. Monica Agrawal, a Duke University professor, highlights "major privacy concerns" associated with sharing health data without robust protections, noting that Meta's policy allows shared data to be stored, used for future AI training, and potentially for targeted advertising. Medical professionals, like Dr. Gauri Agarwal of the University of Miami, strongly advise against uploading personal health information to platforms lacking transparent data handling and control. They recommend users restrict AI interactions to general inquiries, such as preparing questions for doctors, to avoid the inherent risks of entrusting sensitive medical data to these unregulated services.

Ekhbary News Agency