Your AI Companion Doesn’t Need Your Friend’s Face

Somewhere in your camera roll is a photograph that would save you twenty minutes. Good light, a clear face, nobody chewing. Your friend looks rather like the character you’ve been trying to create.

Upload it, change the hairstyle, add a fictional name. Job done.

Except your friend hasn’t agreed to any of this. They agreed to be photographed at dinner, which is a modest commitment compared with becoming the face of an imaginary person who lives in somebody else’s account.

You can make a perfectly interesting AI companion without recruiting anyone from your contacts. Inventing the person also leaves you free to give them terrible taste in furniture. No friendship needs to suffer over a fictional sofa.

The photograph contains more than you remember

Look beyond the face. There might be a work badge beside the plate or an address on an envelope. Perhaps the window reflects somebody who didn’t realize they were in the picture.

An upload can carry those details along with the bit you actually wanted.

This applies to your own photographs, too. Wanting to see yourself as a detective doesn’t necessarily mean you want the source image kept after the experiment. Before uploading, check how the service describes storage, access and any use of submitted material for training.

Privacy policies are rarely anyone’s favorite reading. Still, they can answer questions the cheerful button marked “Create” tends to leave out.

In March 2026, the Federal Trade Commission announced action against OkCupid and Match, alleging that OkCupid gave an unrelated third party access to nearly three million user photographs, alongside location and other information, contrary to its privacy promises. The case concerned dating-app data.

“The FTC enforces the privacy promises that companies make,” said Christopher Mufarrige, director of its Bureau of Consumer Protection.

That’s a reason to pay attention to the promises themselves. A familiar logo doesn’t tell you where a photograph might go.

Give your imaginary person some actual imagination

Start with somebody you can describe without opening a photo album.

A forty-year-old radio presenter who works nights. Untidy curls. Rectangular glasses. A secondhand jacket with one missing button. They’re permanently irritated by the studio coffee machine, although they keep buying the same awful coffee.

Already, you have decisions to make about the character’s expression and clothes. You can develop those details without checking whether the result still resembles your former partner.

The little specifics help. “Attractive, charming and interesting” could describe half the profiles on the internet, at least according to their owners. A presenter who saves broken headphones because they might fix them someday is easier to picture.

Make up the biography as well. Your companion doesn’t need your colleague’s divorce, your neighbor’s job or screenshots from a private conversation to sound convincing.

It’s worth being precise about what a companion service receives. The privacy policy for JOI, for example, lists “Facts about you and your life” and “People mentioned in the chat and public information about them” among its data categories. It also describes processing images and private content, including through service providers. Those details concern the information behind the conversation, regardless of how fictional the character looks.

You can enjoy a made-up personality without supplying a documentary account of your own week.

Some details belong in the story

There’s a difference between making a character specific and making somebody else identifiable. If you’re unsure what to include, look at the detail’s job in the story.

The fictional café can have terrible service. You don’t have to leave it a review.

Ask before involving a real person

Sometimes a friend wants to participate. They might like appearing in a comic or helping you develop a character for a private game.

Explain what you mean before they decide. Which service would receive their photograph? What would you make with it? Who would see the result?

“Can I use your picture?” leaves them guessing.

They may be happy with a cartoon sent to three friends and uncomfortable with a realistic portrait posted publicly. Approval for one image also doesn’t automatically tell you how they feel about a continuing series.

Give them an easy way to decline. You don’t need to win an argument about whether they’re worrying too much.

And if the project changes, revisit the agreement. A picture made for a private joke can find itself being considered for a public post surprisingly quickly.

The imaginary face is only one part of privacy

You can invent every detail of a character and still attach your ordinary username to the account. Or share a screenshot with your email address visible in the corner.

Before posting, look at the whole image. Check the edges for account details and notifications. This takes less effort than asking everyone in a group chat to delete something they’ve already saved.

Check what the publishing buttons do, too. Saving an image to your account and publishing it in a community gallery may be different actions. A shareable link deserves the same attention: the recipient may be able to forward it.

Private browsing won’t settle those questions. Google’s Incognito guidance says it “doesn’t make you invisible.” Websites can still collect information, and downloaded files remain on the device after the session ends.

That portrait may still be sitting in Downloads when somebody borrows the laptop.

Finally, find out what deletion covers. Removing a character, clearing a conversation and deleting an account may involve different records or retention periods. Look for an explanation specific to the service, particularly if you’ve uploaded something personal.

Then get back to making things. Give the radio presenter an appalling jacket and a wildly unreasonable opinion about jazz. There’s plenty of material there. Your friend can remain in the dinner photograph. They didn’t sign up for the night shift.