Gemini AI Allegedly Reads Google Drive Files Without Explicit User Consent

July 16, 2024

Privacy activist Kevin Bankston claims that Google's AI, Gemini, scans personal Google Drive PDF files without explicit user consent. According to Bankston, once a document is processed by Gemini, the AI automatically accesses similar files.

Google denies these allegations, insisting that Gemini operates only with proactive user activation and adheres to privacy-preserving settings. However, this incident highlights the importance of responsible AI governance and the need for safe and secure AI practices.

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Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

Alleged deployer
google, gemini
Alleged developer
google
Alleged harmed parties
kevin-bankston, google-users, google-drive-users

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/743

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.