The Google Gemini privacy support pages warn that information shared with Gemini Apps may be read and annotated by human reviewers and may also be included in AI training datasets. Here’s what you need to know and what actions are available to prevent this from happening.
Google Gemini
Gemini is the name of the technology behind Google’s Gemini Android app available on Google Playan Apple feature Google app for iPhone and an autonomous chatbot called Advanced Gemini.
Gemini on Android, iPhone and Gemini Advanced
Gemini on mobile devices and the standalone chatbot are multimodal. Multimodal means users can ask you questions with images, audio or text input. Gemini can answer questions about real-world things, answer questions, perform actions, provide information about an object in a photo, or provide instructions on how to use it.
All of this data in the form of images, audio and text is sent to Google and some of it could be reviewed by humans or included in AI training datasets.
Does Gemini use Gemini data to create training datasets?
Gemini Apps uses past conversations and location data to generate responses, which is normal and reasonable. Gemini also collects and stores this same data to improve other Google products.
That’s what explanatory privacy page says about it:
“Google collects your Gemini Apps conversations, information related to product usage, information about your location and your comments. Google uses this data, in accordance with our Privacy Policy, to offer, improve and develop Google products and services and machine learning technologies, including Google business products such as Google Cloud.”
Google’s privacy explainer says that data is stored in a users’ Google Account for up to 18 months, and that they can limit data storage to three months and 36 months.
There is also a way to disable saving data to a user’s Google Account:
“If you want to use Gemini Apps without saving your conversations to your Google Account, you can turn off Gemini Apps activity.
..Even when Gemini app activity is turned off, your conversations will be saved with your account for up to 72 hours. This allows Google to provide the service and process any comments. This activity will not appear in your Gemini app activity.”
But there is an exception to the above rule that allows Google to keep data even longer.
Human reviews of users’ Gemini data
from Google Gemini Privacy Support Page explains that user data reviewed and annotated by human reviewers is retained by Google for up to three years.
“How long is reviewed data kept?
Gemini Apps conversations that have been reviewed by human reviewers (as well as comments and related data such as your language, device type, or location information) are not deleted when you delete your Gemini Apps activity because they are kept separately and are not connected to your Google Account. Instead, they are kept for up to 3 years.”
The support page cited above reports that human-reviewed and annotated data is used to create datasets for Chatbots:
“These are then used to create a better dataset for generative machine learning models to learn from so our models can produce improved answers in the future.”
Google Gemini warning: Don’t share sensitive data
from Google Gemini Privacy Explainer The page warns that users should not share confidential information.
It explains:
“To help with quality and improve our products (such as the generative machine learning models that power Gemini apps), human reviewers read, annotate, and process conversations in Gemini apps. We take steps to protect your privacy as part of this process This includes disconnecting your Gemini Apps conversations from your Google Account before reviewers see or note them.
Don’t include confidential information in your conversations or any data you wouldn’t want a reviewer to see or for Google to use to improve our products, services, and machine learning technologies.
…Don’t enter anything you wouldn’t want a human reviewer to see or Google to use. For example, do not enter information that you consider confidential or data that you do not want to be used to improve Google’s products, services, and machine learning technologies.”
There is a way to prevent all this from happening. Disabling Gemini App Activity prevents user data from being displayed to human reviewers, so there is a way to opt out and not have the data stored and used to create datasets.
But, Google still stores data for up to 72 hours to have a backup in case of an error, but also to share it with other Google services and with third-party services that a user may interact with while using Gemini.
The use of Gemini may lead to the sharing of data with third parties
Using Gemini may start a chain reaction of other applications that use and store user conversations, location data, and other information.
The Gemini Privacy Support Page explain:
“If you turn off this setting or delete Gemini app activity, other settings, such as Web and App Activity or Location History, may continue to save your location and other data as part of your usage of other Google services.
In addition, when you integrate and use Gemini Apps with other Google services, they will save and use your data to provide and improve their services, in accordance with their policies and the Google Privacy Policy. If you use Gemini Apps to interact with third-party services, they will process your data in accordance with their own privacy policies.”
Gemini’s privacy page itself links a page to request removal of content, as well as aa Gemini Apps FAwhat Gemini Apps Privacy Center to learn more
Using Gemini comes with strings
Many of the ways Gemini uses data are for legitimate purposes, including submitting the information for human review. But Google’s Gemini support pages make it very clear that users should not share any sensitive information that a human reviewer can see or for it to be included in an AI training dataset.
Featured image by Judith Linine / Shutterstock.com
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