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Meta expressly does not claim ownership of user content but requires a broad license to operate the Service. Users retain their rights and can share their content elsewhere. This is a user-favorable ownership position, though the accompanying license is very broad.

The Terms address ownership of user-posted content but are silent on ownership of outputs generated by Meta's AI features, deferring to a separate 'Meta AI Terms' document that was not supplied. Because the governing AI output terms are not in the analyzed text, ownership of AI-generated results cannot be confirmed.

The Privacy Policy states Meta uses public content and AI-feature interactions to develop and improve its AI models, including for third parties. Public posts, comments and audio are explicitly named as training inputs, and no consumer-tier opt-out from this AI development is described in the supplied text. This broad use of user content for model training is vendor-favorable.

The Terms provide a concrete deletion timeline for account/content deletion (up to 30 days to begin, up to 90 days to delete, plus up to 90 more days for backups), and users can delete content or their account. However, the Privacy Policy retains information on a case-by-case basis with numerous broad exceptions allowing extended retention for legal, safety, and investigative purposes, and no fixed retention schedule is published.

Meta states it does not sell user information and imposes rules on partners, but it shares data extensively across the Meta Companies, with advertisers, analytics and measurement vendors, service providers, integrated partners, external researchers, and AI integrations. Some sharing (advertising, cross-company) is integral to the free ad-supported model and is disclosed, but the breadth of sharing and the business-transfer clause make this moderate risk for professional users.

The policy offers ad settings, privacy settings, and a paid no-ads subscription where data is not used for ads, plus tools to access, port and delete information. However, the supplied text does not clearly describe an opt-out from AI model development or from cross-Meta-Company sharing, so opt-out coverage is partial.

As a consumer social product (with adtech characteristics), the relevant baseline includes GDPR, CCPA/CPRA and COPPA (minors), plus SOC 2/ISO 27001 for security. The supplied documents reference Standard Contractual Clauses and a US Regional Privacy Notice, gesturing at privacy-law compliance, but name no security certifications or audit attestations and do not explicitly claim GDPR/CCPA certification. The absence of any named framework certification is a notable gap.

The documents describe use of AI and machine learning for personalization, integrity and content processing, and reference a transparency center and Oversight Board for content decisions. However, they provide no model explainability guarantees, no enterprise auditing rights, and only general descriptions of automated processing.

The documents commit to using 'reasonable skill and care' to keep a safe and secure environment and reference safeguarding information during transfers, but disclose no specific technical controls such as encryption at rest/in transit, access controls, penetration testing, or bug bounty. No breach history is disclosed and no dedicated trust center or security certification is named in the supplied text.

The only tier distinction disclosed is between the free ad-supported service and a paid no-ads subscription; under the paid tier, data is not used for ads. No business/enterprise data-handling terms are described in the supplied documents, and the no-ads tier does not clearly change AI training or cross-company sharing practices.

The Privacy Policy explicitly states that in some cases Meta uses manual (human) review to access and review user information, including content and messages, for providing products, safety/integrity, and processing special-category data. This broad reservation of human access to user content is disadvantageous for confidential or proprietary use.

The documents disclose that Meta responds to legal requests such as warrants, court orders and subpoenas from law enforcement and government authorities, and may preserve information for legal obligations. Dispute-resolution terms route business/commercial claims to California courts. This is standard disclosure but signals real regulatory and law-enforcement data-access exposure.

Meta collects extensive PII (name, profile info, IP address, device identifiers, location/GPS, usage patterns, cookies) and explicitly processes special-category/SPI data including religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health, and racial or ethnic origin, as well as photo/video selfies and truncated payment data. While special-category processing is tied to user provision/consent, the sheer breadth of PII and SPI collected warrants a high-risk rating.

Both documents are current: the Terms of Use are effective March 4, 2026 and the Privacy Policy is effective July 23, 2026 — well within 12 months of the analysis date. The Privacy Policy demonstrably covers AI/ML processing, agentic AI, and AI model development, so the policy tracks the AI capabilities described. No PRODUCT SURFACE was supplied, but the recency and explicit AI coverage together justify GREEN.

Two documents were supplied — the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy — and they are consistent with one another. Both reference each other on data handling, deletion, AI use and sharing without conflicting on licence, retention, opt-out, or training claims. No material or minor contradictions were found across the two documents.