Meta Muse has already broken a record: it beats all competitors in data collection, Surfshark warns

Muse is the most data-hungry chatbot, warns SurfsharkIt is surpassed only by Meta AIThe VPN reiterates caution about entrusting your data to Big TechMeta’s Muse has been out for barely a month, yet it has already won the competition for the title of the most data-hungry chatbot.The warning comes from Surfshark, one of the best VPNs, which recently conducted research ranking the most privacy-invasive AI chatbots. In its findings, Meta’s AI agent Muse, embodied by Jolly, the Labubu-style character that promises to execute tasks on your behalf, has already outperformed all its competitors when it comes to data harvesting.Only another AI tool stands between Muse and the top spot: the older sibling, Meta AI, remains the undisputed data-harvesting front-runner.Hungry for data (Image credit: Surfshark)“Meta is unbeatable in data collection," stresses Surfshark. In its latest analysis, the VPN makes its case by comparing 13 widely used AI chatbots and the types of data they collect, as listed on the Apple App Store.Indeed, Meta's Muse and Meta AI collect almost twice as many types of data as their competitors: 31 and 33 out of 35 types, respectively.Next comes Google Gemini with 24 types. The trio uniquely collects highly sensitive information including ethnic data, sexual orientation, trade union, political opinion, genetic and biometric data.ChatGPT comes fourth with 17 data types - a number that has alarmingly increased by 70 per cent since last year, with the chatbot now extending its data snatch to health and fitness, audio recordings and search history.Gemini, Meta AI, Muse and Perplexity also capture location data, while ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude and Copilot retrieve approximate location information.The winners of the ‘least intrusive’ title are Pi, Duck.ai and Mistral Vibe, with Pi remarkably collecting only user ID, product interaction and crash data. (Image credit: Future)NEW: Leave No Trace — A weekly newsletter on digital privacy and online surveillance.Leave No Trace investigates the companies and governments putting our digital freedom at risk — and the people fighting back.📩 Subscribe now to get every edition delivered to your inbox every Friday, launching this September.While Muse is marketed as a tool capable of understanding users’ objectives and pursuing them autonomously, Surfshark points out that the large-scale data collection practices employed by the agentic AI app represent a frightening concern for online privacy.Indeed, Muse’s invasive nature enables it to collect an extraordinary amount of highly sensitive information from calendars, emails, and bank accounts. It then combines this with the contextual data gathered from the user’s interactions, thereby managing to draw up an exceptionally accurate profile of your digital identity.This information can then be merged with other datasets for advertising or training purposes, leaving users with very little control over how their data is stored, sold, potentially leaked, or corrupted.Indeed, a security researcher has already warned that Muse can be manipulated into sending your voice recordings to a hacker’s server. Users have also reported instances in which the tool allegedly read their personal messages without permission and then lied about it, as well as cases in which its severe execution faults backfired on users, exposing sensitive information.And while there’s debate over whether Muse is genuinely useful for what it claims to offer or whether it truly helps users perform better rather than merely wasting their time, others describe growing unease at the prospect of giving the keys to their digital life to a company that never showed any remorse for monetising user data.Indeed, Meta is currently also facing hefty fines ranging from $18 billion relating to addiction amongst minors, to €1.2 billion for the improper handling of user data in 2023. This is also the same company known for its ‘pervert glasses’, which can record people without their consent and which have sparked widespread controversy as they have reportedly been used for harassment and stalking.Given all this, steering clear of this major data collector for a while longer might simply be a marvelous idea.Better enforceability is neededAdditionally, while these fines may seem exorbitant, it is worrying that the financial impact of such punishments rarely acts as a deterrent to these large technology companies, whose market capitalisation runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars.In its research, Proton previously found that the $7.8 billion in privacy and competition fines imposed on Big Tech in 2025 could be collectively paid by these firms in less than a month.However, Costa argues that the issue is more complex and regulators might be working toward targeted changes. "First, regulators are escalating the financial stakes, shifting toward massive penalties like Anthropic's $1.5 billion and Meta's $1.4 billion settlements."Additionally, a major challenge right now is actually enforceability — particularly as some companies have already been exploiting loopholes to avoid paying fines. Clearview AI, for example, managed to avoid paying $105 million in fines imposed by four different European regulatory authorities by arguing that it did not fall within European jurisdiction."Even if these early fines are manageable for tech giants, their real value lies in establishing the firm legal precedents that will govern how AI must operate in the future," Costa concludes.