# Your photos don't train AI

> Philos doesn't use your photos or messages to train AI. Here's why that matters, especially for photos of children.

By Suhail (One of the people who make Philos) · Published 8 Oct 2026 · 1 min read
Section: Our thinking · Topics: AI, Privacy, Kids online
Source: https://getphilos.com/blog/your-photos-dont-train-ai

## In short

- Philos doesn't use your photos or messages to train AI.
- Researchers have found real children's photos in a dataset used to train AI tools.
- Once a model has learned from a photo, it can't forget it, so the best protection is not posting publicly.

A photo of your child's first day at school feels like it belongs to your family. Online, it can end up somewhere else entirely: in the data that AI tools learn from.

## What researchers found

In 2024, Human Rights Watch found links to 170 personal photos of Brazilian children in LAION-5B, a large dataset that has been used to train popular AI image tools. Weeks later it reported 190 more photos of Australian children in the same dataset. The photos came from personal blogs and photo and video sites, some posted by the children's own parents years before.

> Current AI models cannot forget data they were trained on.
>
> (Human Rights Watch, July 2024)

That's the hard part. Deleting a photo from the place you posted it doesn't take it out of a model that has already learned from it.

## Where Philos stands

Philos doesn't use your photos or messages to train AI. There's no AI anywhere in what we do with them. Your posts go to the people you choose, and to nobody else.

**What we promise**

- Your photos and messages are never used to train AI.
- Your data is never sold. Not your contacts, not your photos, not who you talk to.
- You can download everything you've shared, or delete your account, any time in Settings.

## The simplest protection

The surest way to keep a photo out of AI training data is not to post it publicly in the first place. Share the first day at school with the grandparents and the godparents, not with the whole internet. That's what Philos is for.

## Questions people ask

### Does Philos use AI on my photos?

No. Philos doesn't use your photos or messages to train AI, and your data is never sold.

### Can I take my photos out of Philos?

Yes. You can download everything you've shared, or delete your account, any time in Settings. What you delete is gone.

## Sources

- [Brazil: Children's Personal Photos Misused to Power AI Tools](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/06/10/brazil-childrens-personal-photos-misused-power-ai-tools), Human Rights Watch, 10 Jun 2024
- [Australia: Children's Personal Photos Misused to Power AI Tools](https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/03/australia-childrens-personal-photos-misused-power-ai-tools), Human Rights Watch, 2 Jul 2024

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© 2026 Philos. From the Philos blog: https://getphilos.com/blog/your-photos-dont-train-ai