Meta is pushing back against a report by Inc. columnist Jason Aten, who said the company’s AI agent Muse read his private messages on his Mac without permission.
Meta VP of Communications Andy Stone said on X that the Messages integration is entirely opt-in and that Muse cannot read messages unless users enable both Full Disk Access and the Messages connector. David Singleton, an executive at Meta Superintelligence Labs, added on Threads that access requires three separate application-level and macOS system-level permission steps, which he said cannot be circumvented even by a bug. The process includes manual confirmation in macOS Settings and a full restart of the app.
Aten, however, said Full Disk Access was turned off at the time, and that Muse told him it had been syncing device notifications. Singleton said the AI was confused and gave an incorrect explanation, pointing to Muse’s security architecture and bug bounty program.
The dispute comes as Muse leads the App Store, though skepticism persists given Meta’s history of data privacy lawsuits and fines, including a recent New Mexico jury finding tied to Cambridge Analytica. YouTuber Matt Robb separately reported that Muse shared his address during a Marketplace sale, later acknowledging he had granted the relevant permission.
