The rapid development of neural networks has long raised concerns among experts about ensuring privacy when interacting with such algorithms. This week, more evidence emerged that these concerns are not in vain. X social network user Kevin Bankster drew attention to the fact that Google’s Gemini neural network automatically scans PDF files stored in Google Drive without obtaining the user’s explicit consent.
Image source: Google
“Just opened my tax return in Google Docs and Gemini summarized it without my permission. So… Gemini is automatically scanning even personal documents that I open in Google Docs? <...> I didn’t ask for this. Now I have to find a new setting that was never told to me to turn it off,” Bankster wrote on his X account.
It is not yet clear what exactly caused Gemini to behave this way. According to the algorithm itself, the privacy settings used to inform Gemini should be publicly available, but they are not. This could mean that either the algorithm is producing false information, or some of Google’s internal systems are clearly not functioning correctly. In any case, it does not look very good, even if we assume that the neural network does not use personal data of users for training.
As for Bankster, after some time, he wrote that he was able to find an option in the settings that, when activated, allows Gemini to scan documents in Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Drive. At the same time, he noted that the option was disabled, but for some reason the algorithm still scanned the document and created a generalized text based on it. Bankster believes that the problem may be related to the fact that he registered for Google Workspace Labs in 2023, which is why Gemini’s settings may not have been applied correctly.
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