Google's Gemini AI has recently come under criticism for automatically summarizing private Drive documents without the user's consent. This feature, which cannot be disabled, has prompted user complaints and raised significant concerns about privacy and user control.
One of the primary issues contributing to this problem is the lack of clear and readily accessible privacy settings for Gemini AI. Users have expressed frustration over the inability to control or disable the automatic summarization feature.
This lack of transparency has led to speculations about internal system malfunctions or glitches that may be causing the unauthorized scanning.
Discovery of the Issue
One user, Kevin Bankster, shared his experience on Twitter, where he discovered Gemini summarizing his private tax document without his permission.
He felt surprised and frustrated as he did not ask for this feature but now needs to find and modify settings he was never informed about. Bankster's account hints at the issue being specific to Google Drive and certain document types.
Interestingly, when he eventually found the settings toggle, it was already disabled for Gmail, Drive, and Docs. Additionally, the toggle was in an entirely different location than where Gemini's bot initially directed him.
The scanning issue with Google's Gemini AI sheds light on the importance of AI companies’ actions on data privacy protection. Companies of large scale like Google must prioritize granular user control to maintain user trust, which in this case has failed by not respecting their privacy preferences.
The incident also raises broader concerns about data privacy among AI deployments and the gradual erosion of user control over their personal information. Users should have the ability to opt in or opt out of features involving the scanning or processing of their confidential documents.