When pressed to reconcile this technical reality, Meta declined to offer a deeper explanation. Inquiries sent to Meta asking how Muse could be technically prevented from reading message files when granted Full Disk Access—while every other macOS application equipped with that same system privilege can freely read those exact files—yielded no technical clarification.
Instead of addressing the mechanical conflict highlighted by security researchers, Meta’s public relations team issued a standard response that simply repeated Singleton’s original statement word-for-word: “The Messages integration in the Muse Mac App is opt-in. Your Muse can only read Messages content if macOS system-level Full Disk Access is granted and the Messages connector is enabled.”
The stonewalling from Meta left unresolved questions about how the software was interacting with local user data and whether the app was indexing local message stores in the background once full system permissions were active. It also underscored a growing friction between third-party developers relying on broad system permissions to power contextual AI features and user expectations regarding granular privacy control.
Apple’s swift intervention marks an explicit attempt to resolve this ambiguity at the platform level. By announcing changes to its macOS privacy framework via its developer portal, Apple is moving to structurally isolate message histories from broad third-party permission grants like Full Disk Access.
The upcoming system revisions are designed to close operational loopholes that allow developers to leverage wide-reaching system access to tap into sensitive user chat data, ensuring that message histories remain strictly protected regardless of how third-party applications attempt to configure their internal settings or prompt users for system rights.
