Meta disputes claim that its Muse AI accessed iMessages without permission

Meta says its Muse AI agent can't read your Messages on a Mac unless you let it, disputing an account from a tech journalist last week who said Muse was all up in his iMessages without permission.

Andy Stone, the company's head of communications, said Wednesday on X that the integration is "entirely opt-in."

"It can't read your Messages unless you do this. And it can be revoked at any time," he wrote.

Two switches have to be on, per Stone. One is Full Disk Access, a setting in Apple's Mac software that lets an app read files anywhere on your computer. The other is the Messages connector, Muse's own on/off switch for that app, and both can be revoked at any time.

He was answering AppleInsider, which reported on Inc. columnist Jason Aten’s experience in which the AI uploaded his texts to its cloud despite his permission settings.

What Aten says happened

Muse is a personal AI agent, meaning software that doesn't just answer questions but acts for you, like sending an email or booking travel. Meta launched it on Sept. 8, and it had surpassed 2.5 million downloads by Sept. 23.

Meta built Muse inside Superintelligence Labs, its AI research unit, whose first model, Muse Spark, arrived April 8.

Aten installed Muse on an iPhone and a Mac mini. He says he declined to give it access to his messages during setup, and that he checked afterward: Full Disk Access was off.

Then Muse pitched him a column idea based on a private text exchange with his podcast co-host. It also flagged a message from his editor about a deadline.

When he asked how it knew, Muse said it only saw the pop-up banners of incoming notifications. Aten says that wasn't true. He found Muse had synced his local Messages database, the file where a Mac keeps your text history.

What Meta says

David Singleton, who leads Meta Superintelligence Labs, said the notification explanation Muse gave was wrong. Muse syncs Messages data when Messages access is enabled, he said.

Singleton also said reading Messages takes three separate steps of permissions, and that macOS protections can't be bypassed even if the Muse app had a bug.

Aten says Full Disk Access was off on his machine and the texts synced anyway. Meta says Muse can't read Messages without it.

Why a toggle matters

An AI agent acts with whatever access you hand it, so the permission screen is the guardrail. Your texts hold family chats and the codes your bank sends to confirm it's you.

This fight is bigger than Meta. Amazon started blocking Muse on Sept. 21, saying it doesn't identify itself while browsing and appears to capture customer credentials. Meta says Muse has no visibility into passwords or payment methods.