Google Gemini artificial intelligence snooped through a user’s file without permission

Artificial intelligence in the form of assistant programs on computers and smartphones raises natural security concerns. Google Gemini seems to be reading user files even if it is prohibited.

One user noticed that Gemini gave its opinion on a document he had just opened, even though he never asked it to do so. Kevin Bankston claims that after opening a PDF tax return in Google Docs, Gemini suddenly appeared and summarized his tax return. Kevin claims that he did not summon Gemini after opening the PDF file, and he did not personally provide any information to it.

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.

— Kevin Bankston (@KevinBankston) July 10, 2024

Kevin did some more work and noticed that it only affected PDFs. He suggested that he opened a PDF once and clicked the Gemini button to see what would happen. after that, Gemini «decided to» appear every time the user opened the PDF.

He goes on to explain that he asked Google Gemini how to disable this feature, and it gave him «buggy» (false) instructions for a setting that didn’t exist. Kevin then found the actual location of the setting to disable Gemini in Google Docs, but it was already disabled.

Some commentators on the incident lamented that Google’s productivity services may now have become a tool for training AI. Others questioned why Kevin was uploading tax returns to Google Docs in the first place. One commenter asked if Gemini’s unsolicited help was helpful and received a negative response.

It is not known exactly how Kevin Bankston acted and whether his data is correct. However, there is a possibility that Google Gemini is looking into users’ files more than we would like.

Sources: Tom`s Hardware, XDA