Meta’s Muse AI Assistant Raised Privacy Concerns by Accessing Message Previews

While Meta’s new Muse AI assistant has been praised for its functionality, a recent incident has highlighted unsettling privacy implications regarding its access to user data. The assistant, which recently launched with a dedicated Mac application, possesses the ability to interface with core macOS features including Messages, Calendar, and Notes.

The concern came to light when Jason Aten, a contributing editor at Inc Magazine, shared screenshots of an interaction with Muse on the Threads platform. During the exchange, the AI prompted Aten with details derived from a conversation he was actively having within the Messages app.

Aten noted a significant discrepancy: he had never granted Muse permission to access his messages. When questioned about how the assistant possessed knowledge of the message contents, Muse responded that it had viewed “notification previews” rather than the messages directly.

This revelation has sparked discussion about the breadth of data Muse can harvest through system-level notifications, even when explicit access to specific apps has not been granted by the user.