Our CEO recently shared a Facebook post addressing the growing trend of using AI tools to turn personal photos into cartoon-style images. While it may seem fun to see yourself reimagined as a cartoon, we strongly advise against participating in this social media trend.

"At ControlAltProtect, we take this issue seriously. When we see friends, family members, or colleagues posting AI-generated cartoon versions of themselves, it raises real security and privacy concerns. We want to highlight the risks associated with this activity so you can make informed decisions."

Brent's post cautioned: "Please take advice from a data scientist and security investigator. THIS IS SO RISKY!!!! Don't jump on the bandwagon!!!!"

Why we keep waving people off this trend

Brent shared this warning for Meta users and other social media participants: please stop entering personal information into AI tools for the purpose of making cute cartoons. Your data will get used in ways you didn't anticipate, including:

  • Data scraping. Cybercriminals can collect uploaded images to train malicious AI models or sell the data to third parties. Using an AI model to grab and aggregate all this data puts the puzzle together for bad actors.
  • Identity theft and deepfakes. Facial data can be used to create highly realistic deepfakes for impersonation, potentially leading to identity theft or financial fraud.
  • Malware distribution. Attackers frequently use sponsored ads promoting fake AI generator tools on social platforms to distribute malware that can infect your device when clicked or installed.
  • Privacy loss. Once photos are uploaded, you often lose control over how they're stored, processed, or shared under broad application privacy policies.

"What if it's too late? It has been done."

That's the question a follower asked Brent. Here's the guidance he shared.

Practice prompt hygiene

Before submitting prompts or commands to any AI platform, remove names, addresses, client IDs, and proprietary information. Use hypothetical framing (for example, "How would someone handle X?") to distance requests from real-world specifics.

Disable data training

Review the privacy settings of AI tools and opt out of data being used for model training where available. Business-grade tiers often provide stronger data privacy protections.

Limit your public footprint

AI systems and bots scrape publicly available data to build profiles. Set social media accounts to private where possible and consider using personal data removal services to reduce your exposure on data broker sites.

Cloak and poison

Protect your biometric and stylistic identifiers with tools such as Glaze, Nightshade, or Fawkes. These technologies are designed to obscure personal data from AI systems while remaining invisible to human viewers.

If you really want a cartoon

In the long run, participating in AI cartoon trends is not worth the risk. If you want a cartoon version of yourself, consider hosting an event and hiring an artist to draw caricatures for you and your guests. You get the cartoon, your guests get a memory, and your face doesn't end up in someone's training set.