Gemini AI Platform Accused of Scanning Google Drive Files Without User Permission (techradar.com) 23
Last week, Senior Advisor on AI Governance at the Center for Democracy & Technology, Kevin Bankston, took to X to report that Google's Gemini AI was caught summarizing his private tax return on Google Drive without his permission. "Despite attempts to disable the feature, Bankston found that Gemini's continued to operate in Google Drive, raising questions about Google's handling of user data and privacy settings," writes TechRadar's Craig Hale. From the report: After failing to find the right controls to disable Gemini's integration, the Advisor asked Google's ChatGPT-rivalling AI chatbot on two occasions to pinpoint the settings. A second, more detailed response still brought no joy: "Gemini is *not* in Apps and services on my dashboard (1st option), and I didn't have a profile pic in the upper right of the Gemini page (2nd)."
With help from another X user, Bankston found the control, which was already disabled, highlighting either a malfunctioning control or indicating that further settings are hidden elsewhere. However, previous Google documentation has confirmed that the company will not use Google Workspace data to train or improve its generative AI services or to feed targeted ads. Bankston theorizes that his previous participation in Google Workspace Labs might have influenced Gemini's behavior. The Gemini side panel in Google Drive for PDFs can be closed if a user no longer wishes to access generative AI summaries.
With help from another X user, Bankston found the control, which was already disabled, highlighting either a malfunctioning control or indicating that further settings are hidden elsewhere. However, previous Google documentation has confirmed that the company will not use Google Workspace data to train or improve its generative AI services or to feed targeted ads. Bankston theorizes that his previous participation in Google Workspace Labs might have influenced Gemini's behavior. The Gemini side panel in Google Drive for PDFs can be closed if a user no longer wishes to access generative AI summaries.
Imagine when AI is baked into Android and Chrome (Score:2)
Re:Imagine when AI is baked into Android and Chrom (Score:4, Insightful)
I recently have been fixing phone for chumps around here and whatsapp security can cause problems when you change things... so I was looking around for a logout function, last time I looked, it was buried a few levels down in the menus on a system menu, but now.... it's gone. Same on Signal now. I checked out of curiosity.
They've removed "off" from the lexicon. No one noticed.
Two words - "Predictive Policing" (Score:2)
Large and small scraping, tracking, ALPR, AT&T numbers you call, your electricity usage pattern, the neighbor's ring camera, facial recognition, gait recognition, voice recognition, and the millions of other ways you are the product are all leading to
LLM / Generative AI which is just answering the age old question: Where can I put the policeman to catch the most severe crime before it happens?
What you say today could be a career ending statement in 10 years. Are you prepared to only speak in the safest
Re: (Score:2)
Also note, 10 year old Shitter posts have already brought down several of the The Mighty.
So were already here... never off, hardware security/surveillance will just be the final nail.
It has been in effect for hundreds of years (Score:2)
It was just know your neighbor and know your neighborhood by the local beat policeman.
The downside was that high crime neighborhoods claimed that an unduly large number of police in the area was discriminatory. Hence the computer modeling to keep the high contact policing away from sight yet ready nearby.
This is my shocked face (Score:3)
;-(
Hilarious, really? (Score:3)
Come on, who actually thought that they wouldn't be crawling through your files?
Seriously, anyone? Do people trust them just because they say they won't?
If so, don't go away- I have an incredible opportunity for you to buy this bridge I happen to have...
Re: (Score:2)
Is there actually an issue here? (Score:2)
If it's the latter, it could still be an issue, but more from the chance of private files bouncing around extra servers.
If it's the former, we have much more cause for concern, but I don't get that impression. Perhaps there's something I'm missing either way?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, as I see it, that's exactly the question at hand. No one knows for sure, because Google isn't transparent about what it is doing with your data.
area man learns why google drive exists (Score:3)
I hope he can keep his socks on when he finds out why he gets to use gmail for free.
But we always knew our data was the product...? (Score:3)
That was kind of the deal, right? In exchange for our free use of their services, we understood that anything we create or store on a Google platform -- Mail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive. etc. -- would be used to train models. ...Yea? So is the surprise that somehow people thought Drive was somehow exempt?
Now, when people pay for those services (corporate accounts, extras and such), then sure, then maybe you'd expect some level of privacy.
Re: (Score:2)
That was kind of the deal, right? In exchange for our free use of their services, we understood that anything we create or store on a Google platform -- Mail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive. etc. -- would be used to train models. ...Yea?
I use Gmail and Google Drive for almost 20 years now. That was never the deal and I never did consent to it.
Can Google change the deal? Yes, it can. But it must warn me first, so I can choose to accept it or leave.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you read and understand the entirety of the relevant EULAs in effect 20 years ago when you clicked on the "I Agree" button, because how else would you know what you did and did not consent to? How about each updated TOS agreement that Google sent you in the intervening years?
Re: (Score:2)
TBH, yeah. I make an effort and always read it. I'm sure it never mentioned "model training".
Unfortunately, tech companies are making it increasingly difficult to keep up with the task of reading and understanding it all, not to mention lying and hiding things eventually.
Nefarious? (Score:2)
I still fail to see what was nefarious here. Some AI is giving the user a summary of the file stored there, nefarious would be if the summary is made available to Google, not to the user, is there any evidence about that?
Google Privacy Statement translated from Lawspeak (Score:2)
Google's policy concerning your private information might not be as transparent as you might wish. It stretches for thousands of words scattered across a seemingly endless number of links. The PDF file alone is 34 pages, and that's not including whatever's at the end of those links.
You can find it here:
https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US#infocollect [google.com]
After a lot of hard work, I've managed to summarize Google's position for your convenience. It comes down to this:
"Your data is our data. Deal wi
sue giggle in small claims court (Score:1)