> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://bytevyte.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Meta Muse Profiles Contacts Who Never Joined, and Controls Stop at Users - URL: https://bytevyte.com/meta-muse-profiles-contacts-who-never-joined-and-controls-stop-at-users/ - Published: 2026-10-11T13:47:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-11T13:47:00.000Z - Description: Meta Muse builds hourly dossiers on users and their contacts, including non-users who cannot opt out. Here is what TIME's investigation found. - Author: Bytevyte Editorial - Tags: quick-beats **Meta Muse**, the personal AI assistant Meta launched in September 2026, keeps running profiles on the people users talk about, and many of those people have never installed the app. A TIME investigation published on October 6, 2026 found that the assistant's internal instructions call for dossiers that are refreshed every hour. Meta's stated safeguards cover what users choose to share and what they ask Muse to forget, which leaves the non-users inside those files without a visible way to opt out. ## What the instructions describe According to TIME's reading of the instructions, Muse builds a dossier on each user and then updates it hourly with details drawn from chats, messages and emails the assistant has read. Connected services such as calendar, email and messaging determine how much material the assistant can reach. Each profile can record how a user met a contact, which interests they share, and where social friction exists within a group. Researcher Karan Joshi extracted the system prompts, and Wired reported on the hourly process on October 3, 2026, three days before TIME published its analysis. The files are not limited to the account holder. The instructions reportedly tell Muse to keep a page for every person in the user's life, covering family, partners, friends, colleagues and people the user follows. Meta has said that information about non-users can reach Muse through shared material or public sources. NeoTeo's reading of the instructions also notes that the hourly workflow describes a possible process, not a routine that runs on every account. That distinction matters for scope, but it does not change the basic design: a person who never signed up can end up with a file built from someone else's messages. ## Where the controls stop Meta points to two mechanisms. The first is the user's own choice: Muse remembers what matters most to the user, including information about others that the user chooses to share. The second is the forget function: users can ask Muse to drop information it has learned. TIME reported, however, that the original memory could not be fully erased, so a deletion request may not remove what the system already recorded. Neither mechanism reaches the non-user. A contact who never opened Muse has no account, no settings page and no record of consent to withdraw. The control model assumes the person who shares the information is the person who decides whether it is kept. For a profile built from a third party's messages, that assumption breaks down. The sources reviewed for this article contain no opt-out path for people outside the product, and Meta did not dispute the findings in the reporting. The trade-off is concrete. Users who want an assistant that remembers birthdays, follow-ups and relationship context gain a tool that holds that context in one place. The cost falls on contacts, who lose control over how they are described in a system they never agreed to enter. A user who connects email and messaging also exposes every correspondent in those accounts, not only the messages they write. ## What users should do now Users who keep Muse should review which services are connected, especially email, messaging and calendar, and limit access to what the assistant needs for its stated tasks. Anyone who relies on the forget function should assume it may not erase earlier records, based on TIME's reporting. Users who want to test the scope can ask Muse what it holds about a named contact, then compare the answer with the controls shown in the app. Watch for a documented opt-out for non-users from Meta. None appeared in the material reviewed here. ## Why this matters Muse shows that a consumer assistant can become a data-collection layer for people who never chose it. The question for Meta is no longer only whether users can delete their own data, but whether anyone outside the product can object to a file about them. Until that path exists, the people in a user's address book carry the privacy cost of the feature. ## Sources [Meta's Muse AI files away your friendships, arguments, and secrets](https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/privacy/2026/10/metas-muse-ai-files-away-your-friendships-arguments-and-secrets?ref=bytevyte.com) ## Related Articles - [Meta Muse Safety Warning Sharpens After Flaw Exposed User Cloud VMs](https://bytevyte.com/meta-muse-safety-warning-sharpens-after-flaw-exposed-user-cloud-vms/) - [Meta's Muse AI agent sends emails, books trips and shops for $20 a month](https://bytevyte.com/metas-muse-ai-agent-sends-emails-books-trips-and-shops-for-20-a-month/) - [Meta Muse Image Brings Deliberate Reasoning to AI Photo Generation Across Instagram and WhatsApp](https://bytevyte.com/meta-muse-image-brings-deliberate-reasoning-to-ai-photo-generation-across-instagram-and-whatsapp/) ✔Human Verified --- *Researched and cross-referenced against primary sources by the Bytevyte editorial team. This article was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the Bytevyte editorial team.*