It’s always a good idea to keep your Facebook photos under strict privacy settings, because you never know who may be able to find them. For example, the CEO of a controversial company called Clearview AI recently revealed that it scraped 30 billion photos from Facebook and other social media companies to help it build a facial recognition database.

According to Clearview AI’s chief executive, the company took users’ photos without their knowledge and created a database that has been accessed nearly one million times by law enforcement officials. This is obviously a gross violation of user privacy, which is why Facebook sent the company a cease-and-desist letter in 2020.

“Clearview AI’s actions invade people’s privacy which is why we banned their founder from our services and sent them a legal demand to stop accessing any data, photos, or videos from our services,” a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider. The spokesperson also noted that since that time, Facebook has “made significant investments in technology” and has spent “substantial team resources… combating unauthorized scraping on Facebook products.”

While it’s great that this problem has been addressed, it’s a harsh reminder for every Facebook user to be extra careful what they share on the platform. After all, you never know if your data could fall into the wrong hands.

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