Google Wants To Use Your Email To Train AI

JAKARTA - Google is again taking controversial steps regarding user privacy. The company now wants to use your email including an attachment in it to train their artificial intelligence (AI) model. Fortunately, there is an easy way to disable this feature.

In recent years, many major technology companies have been trying to leverage user data to train their language models. Previously, Meta had sparked controversy after asking Facebook users to give permission to permanently upload the entire content of their photo gallery to the cloud.

Now, Google is doing the same thing. Gmail wants to use user email and attachments to train features like Smart Compose and AI-based automatic replies. What makes the situation even more troubling is that this feature is active by default (opt-out), instead of asking for user approval first (opt-in). Worse, this feature turns out to be activated in two different settings, as found by MalwareBytes.

AppleInsider emphasizes that it is very important for users to turn off this feature. Emails often contain sensitive information such as health data, electricity bills, bank accounts, or workplace conversations that are confidential in nature Things Google shouldn't access without an explicit permit.

Here's how to turn off Gmail's AI training feature completely:

Open Gmail on desktop or iPhone app

Tap the gear icon (settings), then select Settings or See All Settings

Scroll to Smart Features section

Uncheck the Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet options

desktop users must click Save Changes

After the first step is complete, you must turn off this second setting:

Open Gmail on desktop or mobile

Tap the gear icon and select Settings / See All Settings

Scroll down then click Manage Workspace smart feature settings

Disable:

Smart features in Google Workspace

Smart features in other Google products

Tap or click Save if available

This setting applies to all your Google accounts, not just certain devices or browsers. That is, you only need to disable it once, and changes will apply on all devices.

Users in the European Union, Japan, Switzerland and the UK are reportedly not included in this data collection (opt-out by default), possibly due to stricter privacy regulations. If you are in that country, you don't have to change anything.

As usual, it is highly recommended to help friends or family who do not understand technology so that they do not unknowingly agree to the use of sensitive data by Google.