Snapchat’s AI-Driven Ads Spark Privacy Concerns

Snapchat’s new AI-powered “My Selfie” feature, which transforms user selfies into personalized ads, is raising privacy and consent concerns. The tool allows Snapchat to generate AI-driven images of users interacting with products, potentially featuring their likenesses in advertisements without explicit approval. By default, users are opted into this feature, creating digital consent and user control challenges.

For businesses in advertising and data privacy sectors, this development could signal a new wave of personalized marketing, but also presents legal and ethical risks. Critics have voiced concerns about transparency, as many users are unaware their facial data may be used this way, raising potential compliance issues, especially under regulations like GDPR in Europe.

Although Snapchat claims that advertisers do not access private data to construct these AI-generated images, privacy experts warn of broader implications: primarily as AI bias, potential for deepfakes, and unauthorized data usage. This includes the possibility of somebody’s face being accidentally re-created and used to promote a product that they are vehemently against.

While many AI tools are beneficial for users, especially on social media platforms, there are also valid reasons for users to be way of apps that apply those AI tools without their consent or awareness.

As AI continues to revolutionize digital marketing, managing the balance between personalisation and ethics could become even more important. This will be an especially large concern as more and more countries move to make concrete laws about AI usage, sometimes to the detriment of the platforms trying to implement it.