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[This article has been updated]
Right now, Google is testing Gemini on several of its services and products. While this is a good thing, one user had a pretty suspicious experience with one of Google’s services. One user claimed that Gemini automatically scans documents in Google Drive.
A user claimed that Gemini scans documents without permission
This is a bit of a confusing story just looking at the details. We got the first report of this from Kevin Bankston, a privacy activist and current Facebook Privacy Policy Director. He made a post on X pointing to Gemini automatically scanning one of his PDF documents.
“Just pulled up my tax return in @Google Docs–and unbidden, Gemini summarized it. So…Gemini is automatically ingesting even the private docs I open in Google Docs? WTF, guys. I didn’t ask for this. Now I have to go find new settings I was never told about to turn this crap off.”
Google’s response
According to Google, you’ll need to enable the settings. When signing up for the Gemini for Workspace Labs program, you have to agree to certain terms of service, but scanning documents is the kind of permission you’d need to enable separately.
Bankston used Gemini to track down the settings to disable this feature. When he eventually found the setting, he found that the settings were already disabled.
Google responded to Bankston to clear things up:
“Our generative AI features are designed to give users choice and keep them in control of their data. Using Gemini in Google Workspace requires a user to proactively enable it, and when they do their content is used in a privacy-preserving manner to generate useful responses to their prompts, but is not otherwise stored without permission.”
The company also reached out to us to state that it does not scan documents automatically. Bankston was using the Gemini side panel, which summarizes documents when activated. However, the company made it clear that none of the data present in the document is used to generate the summary, but it’s not stored without the user’s permission.
This is a pretty scary story to read. Google tells us that it was able to clear things up with Bankston. If you’re a Google Workspace user, and you use Gemini, be sure to look over your privacy and data settings.