Is Stable Diffusion Safe? Everything You Need To Know

Stable Diffusion is one of the best generative AI tools out there that lets you generate images from text-based prompts. 

Its immense power allows you to generate any kind of image without any censorship when installed locally on your computer. 

But this begs the question: 

Is Stable Diffusion Safe? Do your generated images stay private? 

If you’re someone who wants to use Stable Diffusion, you might have concerns regarding the safety and privacy of your images. 

Generally speaking, if you are using Stable Diffusion locally on your computer, it’s completely safe as your image generations remain stored in your computer. Stable Diffusion also cannot access your Internet so there’s no worry about safety and privacy while using it. 

If you’re looking for a short answer that’s it. But there are many other aspects of security and privacy while using Stable Diffusion that you should know. 

It’s not just whether your generated images are private but also about the types of models you use, the extensions you install on your Stable Diffusion WebUI, and more. 

In this article, I’ll be addressing all these concerns so that you have a clear idea of Stable Diffusion’s privacy and what you should to do ensure maximum safety. 

Let’s get started.

Is Stable Diffusion Safe?

Stable Diffusion can be used in various ways such as installing it locally on your computer, using online websites to run Stable Diffusion, or hosting the local installation on Google Colab. 

Each approach of using Stable Diffusion has different implications regarding safety and privacy. Since the majority of users install Stable Diffusion locally on their computers, we’ll talk about that first. 

When you’re using Stable Diffusion locally on your device, it has no access to your Internet. So, all the image generation happens on your device without any Internet connection. 

This means that all your generations and whatever you do in Stable Diffusion cannot be accessed or transferred elsewhere. It stays within your device. 

The same can be said if you install Stable Diffusion on Google Colab. However, there have been cases where Google Colab can ban your account if you’re generating NSFW images. This suggests that Google Colab can access or monitor your image generations. 

Lastly, if you’re using an online website to run Stable Diffusion such as Night Cafe or Mage Space, your generations will be stored on that website’s servers. So, your image generations are not as private as running Stable Diffusion locally. 

While many of these websites claim full privacy and safety, it’s still difficult to trust them especially if you’re doing image-to-image generations. Not to mention a data breach on their website could lead to your image generation be accessed by others. 

Besides this, if you’re using an online Stable Diffusion image generator, the website can also track your online behavior and store other information on their website. 

Overall, you’re most safe if you are using Stable Diffusion locally on your device. Your images cannot be accessed and you don’t have any restraints on what you generate. 

Are Stable Diffusion Models Safe To Download?

There are tons of Stable Diffusion models out there and in many cases, people download them without thinking much about the safety concerns with using models. 

The biggest website where you can find Stable Diffusion models is Civitai and it hosts thousands of models. You can also find models on websites like HuggingFace. 

What you need to know is that there are two common file formats used for Stable Diffusion models. 

The first format is the .safetensors file which is considered safe to download and use. That’s because these models cannot run malicious code on your device. 

The second format is the .ckpt file which is also called a checkpoint file. This file format is capable of running Python code on your device which can be used for harmful purposes. 

So, whenever you’re downloading a model, make sure to download the .safetensors file of the model. If there’s only a .ckpt file version available, it’s better to avoid such models. 

Tips To Stay Safe While Using Stable Diffusion

Here are some tips to follow to ensure safety and privacy while using Stable Diffusion: 

• Before installing an extension on Automatic1111 or ComfyUI, always check the GitHub page of the extension to ensure it’s legitimate and safe to use.
• Only use popular Stable Diffusion WebUIs like Automatic1111, ComfyUI, InvokeAI, etc. There are many new WebUI’s out there but they could be unsafe to use. 
• Do not set your Automatic1111 to update Stable Diffusion automatically. This is not unsafe but automatic updates to the newest version can cause bugs that can take days to get fixed. 
• If you’re using an online website to run Stable Diffusion, never upload any private images on it for image-to-image generation. 
• Only download models that have a .safetensor extension as they’re safer than the .ckpt extension. 

FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about the safety and privacy of Stable Diffusion: 

Conclusion

Being open-source has helped Stable Diffusion tremendously in becoming a trustworthy image generation tool. It’s very safe to use when using locally on your computer and you don’t have to worry about the privacy of your images. 

While the Stable Diffusion community is generally harmless with helpful contributors making models and extensions, it’s still important to stay cautious as one malicious model or extension can cause trouble. 

If you have any questions about the safety of Stable Diffusion, feel free to drop your questions in the comments section below.