The ability of AI systems to act as agents, carrying out tasks on our behalf, is the single biggest development in the technology. This is the headline capability Siri AI introduces to Apple devices, and I’m inclined to trust the privacy and safety safeguards Apple has put into place.

But Siri AI isn’t the only agent you can give full access to your Apple devices, with Meta’s Muse app the latest example – and one tech writer’s experience really underlines why you absolutely don’t want to do this …

If I were to compile a list of companies I would least trust to give full access to my devices and all of the data stored on them, Meta would unquestionably be the first entry. The company has an abysmal privacy record, and its entire business model is based on sucking up as much of our personal data as possible.

When Meta launched its Muse personal AI agent for iPhone and Mac, there was not the slightest possibility that I was ever going to allow it anywhere near my devices. However, it seems my caution is far from universal, as the app quickly jumped to the top of the App Store.

Tech writer Jason Aten was one of those to try it, sensibly using a test machine rather than his own Mac. However, this did allow the app to access to his iMessages, despite him telling it not to do so.

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with my Primary Technology podcast co-host, Stephen Robles, about the new iPhones. Moments later, I got a push notification from Muse suggesting that the conversation we were having would make for a good column and offered to put together research for me to write about.

Not only had I not asked it to do that sort of thing, I never gave it permission to read my messages. In fact, I remember explicitly choosing not to let it have access to my messages, calendar, and other personal information.

When he questioned it, the app lied to him about how it had achieved this, claiming it had only accessed the message text visible in his notifications.

Except that wasn’t true. I did a little digging. Muse does sync your messages from the local Messages database and uploads that information as a data source. On my device, it had been activated and synced to row 187,462 of my Messages database. I’m not sure how many messages that equates to, but it’s obviously more than whatever Muse told me about what it was doing. Which, honestly, is the point. I never gave it permission to do that.

Other users have reported similar major privacy issues, some of which Meta has attributed to a bug.

Nope.

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Photo: Serge S/Unsplash

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