Microsoft Contractors Can See Clear Face Photos Uploaded by Users

Tech media outlet 404 Media revealed that hundreds of contractors hired by Microsoft can view clear face photos uploaded by users to Copilot, along with the original prompts and AI-edited results. Reporter Joseph Cox found that these contractors are not content moderators—their main job is to rate the quality of AI-generated content.

One contractor said faces in user uploads are never blurred, many prompts contain sexual hints, and some content is clearly non-consensual. Microsoft's Copilot privacy FAQ states that faces in uploaded images are blurred before being used to train AI, but that only covers training, not human rating work.

At least one company recruiting these workers is Prolific, which specializes in finding people for research projects and AI feedback.