“TRUST STARTS & ENDS WITH THE TRUTH”
“TRUST STARTS & ENDS WITH THE TRUTH”
Matt is both the company founder and a nationally renowned private investigator. Matt is an intelligence specialist who excels in detecting and preventing the illegal interception of communications and in providing high-tech covert surveillance. Matt has years of hands on experience in the investigation industry and has developed a reputation for incorporating state of the art technology and innovative ideas to provide effective solutions for his clients. Matt also serves as Treasurer for the Executive Board of Directors of FALI, The Florida Association of Licensed Investigators.
AI privacy concerns are the risks that artificial intelligence systems collect, infer, expose, or misuse personal information without a person’s knowledge or consent. We look at that definition from an investigator’s side. A chatbot company holding your chats is one risk. A stranger, an ex-partner, or a scammer pointing AI at details about you that are already public is another, and this guide covers both.
The AI privacy concerns that affect you personally are profile building from public records, face matching from photos, voice and likeness cloning, recording by smart devices, and companies changing how they use your data. Each concern has a different source, a different warning sign, and a different fix.
| The concern | Who is behind it | The warning sign | What limits it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your public details compiled into one profile | Anyone who buys or builds a report on you | A stranger knows your address, relatives, or routine | Opt-outs at people search sites and private social media accounts |
| Your face matched to your name from a photo | Someone holding a photo of you | Contact from a person who should have no way to know who you are | Fewer public photos and private accounts |
| Your voice or likeness cloned | Scammers and harassers | A familiar voice with an urgent request for money | A family secret word and less public audio and video |
| Smart devices and assistants recording at home | The device maker, or a person who planted a device | Someone repeats what you said in private | The device's recording settings, or a professional sweep |
| A company changing how it uses your data | The AI company | A policy update notice | A fresh look at training and data settings |
Worry about AI and personal data is widespread. In a Pew Research Center survey of 5,119 U.S. adults in February 2026, 71% said AI will make their personal information less secure, and 3% expected it to become more secure.
AI privacy concerns differ from regular data privacy issues in speed and scale. Regular data privacy issues center on what a company holds about you. AI systems can gather scattered details from many places, draw conclusions you never shared, and copy a voice or a face, so the harm can come from a person who never held your data.
If AI is being used against you, save the original evidence, report the account or content to the platform, and file a report with the right federal agency.
Credit freezes and the steps that follow are laid out in our full checklist for misused personal data.
Red flags:
Safety comes first when the person behind the problem is a current or former partner. The National Domestic Violence Hotline answers at 800-799-7233, or by text if you send START to 88788.
Yes, AI can be used to find personal information about you, because most of the raw material is already public or for sale. The FTC explains that people search sites collect personal information from a variety of sources, compile it into a report, and sell those reports to anyone willing to pay.
A people search report can include your age, current and previous addresses, properties you have bought or sold, employment history, criminal and civil records, and the names and addresses of family members. The FTC lists three sources for that information: other data brokers, public social media profiles, and government records such as property records and voter registration.
Scattered details work like jigsaw pieces. A property record, a tagged photo, and a gym check-in mean little on their own. Joining them used to take a person hours of searching, and AI tools shorten that job. Public details deserve a second look for that reason.
Example (illustrative, not a client case): A nurse in Kissimmee blocks a former coworker on every platform. Weeks later he mentions her new apartment complex and her Tuesday shift, and she told him neither. A people search report, a public staff page, and one tagged photo held all three pieces.
Harassment that arrives through an anonymous account adds a second question, which is who is running it. Our cyberstalking and online harassment investigations focus on identifying the person behind the account and collecting evidence an attorney can use.
You can remove much of your information from people search sites by opting out at each one. The FTC says a site will stop selling your existing information after you opt out. Opting out has limits: your details may still appear in relatives’ reports, may return if public records change, and stay on government websites.
Find out what is already public about you
A Digital Risk Profile searches the surface web, deep web, and dark web for your exposed accounts, photos, and personal details, then ranks what to handle first.
See what a Digital Risk Profile covers
Confidential and handled by a licensed Florida investigator.
Yes, facial recognition systems can match a photo of a face against a database of images and return the person’s identity. The Dutch Data Protection Authority fined Clearview €30.5 million over a database of more than 30 billion photos, which the regulator said were scraped automatically from the internet.
Clearview offered its service to intelligence and investigative services, and customers could submit camera images to find out who appeared in them. The regulator’s chairman spelled out the consequence for ordinary people: anyone with a photo online can end up in Clearview’s database and be tracked. The regulator added that the photos were collected without people knowing and without their consent.
Public photos are the part you control. The FBI advises limiting online content of your image, making social media accounts private, and limiting followers to people you know.
Contact from a stranger can turn into following, repeated messages, or visits in person. Our stalking and harassment investigations gather evidence of that pattern so police and attorneys have something to act on.
Yes, generative AI can produce a convincing copy of a voice or a face from recordings and photos that are already public. The FBI warned in December 2024 that criminals generate short audio clips containing a loved one’s voice to pose as a close relative in a crisis and ask for money or a ransom.
Public audio and video are the raw material. The same FBI notice recommends limiting how much of your voice and image is online, which matters most for anyone with public videos or podcasts.
A recording alone proves little once cloning is this accessible. Our team reviews file metadata, audio waveforms, and frame-by-frame video detail when a client needs help confirming whether a recording is synthetic.
Florida treats several kinds of deepfakes as crimes, and our guide to Florida’s deepfake laws covers which ones.
The FBI recommends creating a secret word or phrase with your family to verify a caller’s identity. The FBI also advises listening to tone and word choice to tell a real call from a cloned voice. Our own advice is to agree on the word in person and ask for it whenever a call involves money, an emergency, or secrecy.
Smart speakers and voice assistants send voice commands to company servers for processing, and the company decides how long those recordings are kept. In May 2023, the FTC and the Justice Department charged that Amazon kept children’s Alexa voice recordings for years and used that data to improve its Alexa algorithm. The settlement required Amazon to pay a $25 million civil penalty.
The FTC also said Amazon failed to delete transcripts of what children said from all its databases, even after parents asked.
A voice assistant keeping recordings is a company policy problem. A person hearing your private conversations is a separate problem, and the two call for different fixes.
Company retention is handled in the device’s privacy settings. Hidden cameras, microphones, and GPS trackers are physical devices someone placed, and finding them takes a sweep for hidden cameras and microphones in the home, office, or vehicle. Monitoring software on a phone is a third possibility, and our team can examine a phone you own for spyware and tracking apps.
Yes, an AI company can change its privacy policy, and FTC staff have warned that doing so without clear notice may break the law. In a February 2024 post, FTC staff wrote that it may be unfair or deceptive for a company to start using consumers’ data for AI training through a surreptitious, retroactive amendment to its terms of service or privacy policy.
The same FTC post named the incentive. Companies, the post said, “have powerful business incentives to turn the abundant flow of user data into more fuel for their AI products.”
A policy update email is a good prompt to recheck the training and data settings in any AI tool you use.
An AI privacy concern needs an investigator when you have to find out who is behind it, or when the evidence has to be documented for an attorney, a court, or police. Settings, opt-outs, and platform reports cost nothing and handle a large share of everyday exposure.
Situations where an investigator helps:
Southern Recon Agency is a Florida licensed private investigation agency, License A1400197, based in Orlando and serving Tampa, Sarasota, and Osceola County. Our team includes Certified Digital Forensics Examiners and Certified Ethical Hackers.
Results depend on how much of the trail still exists and how quickly the work starts. Southern Recon Agency examines only devices our clients own.
AI privacy concerns cover two kinds of risk: what AI companies do with your data, and what other people can do with AI and the details about you that are already public. People search reports, public photos, and public audio are the raw material for profiles, face matches, and cloned voices. Opt out of people search sites, keep social accounts private, and set a family secret word. If your information is already being misused, save the originals and report to the platform, IdentityTheft.gov, or ic3.gov.
If someone is using your photos, voice, or personal details, the accounts and files they left behind are where the trail starts.
We trace the source, preserve the evidence, and tell you plainly what your options are.
Request a confidential privacy consultation
Florida licensed agency A1400197. Call 844-307-7771.
The main AI privacy risks for individuals are profile building from public records and people search reports, face matching from public photos, cloned voices and deepfakes, recordings kept by smart devices, and policy changes that open personal data to AI training. Each risk has a different source, so each one calls for a different response.
Voice assistants send voice commands to company servers, and a 2023 FTC action against Amazon concerned children’s Alexa recordings kept for years. A person repeating details from your private conversations points to something else, such as a hidden device or monitoring software on a phone, and calls for a physical or forensic check.
Location tracking usually starts with data that phone apps already share. In January 2024, the FTC prohibited data broker X-Mode Social from selling sensitive location data after alleging the company sold precise location data that could be used to track visits to medical clinics, places of worship, and domestic abuse shelters.
Private accounts reduce what a stranger or a scraper can collect from now on, and the FBI recommends them along with limiting followers to people you know. Private settings cannot pull back photos that were already copied. People search listings are separate and need their own opt-out requests.
Collecting publicly available information is generally legal, and the use a person makes of it can still be a crime. Florida’s stalking law treats a course of conduct directed at a specific person that causes substantial emotional distress and serves no legitimate purpose as harassment, and the law also covers cyberstalking. For a specific situation, talk to a Florida attorney.
Matt Aubin is the founder and managing partner of Southern Recon Agency, a Florida-licensed private investigation agency (License A1400197) that he started in 2010. He is a Certified Digital Forensics Examiner, a Certified TSCM Technician, and a Florida Board Certified Investigator, and a court-qualified expert witness in cyber intelligence and cyber forensics.
Everything in this article is general information and is not legal advice. For help with a specific situation, contact a licensed investigator or a Florida attorney.