No surprise. Google is digging through your documents

Google: Let me summarize the document for you! Don’t want to? I’ll do it anyway

Kevin Bankston has pointed out a problem with Gemini’s operation. The service’s recent integration with Google Docs and Google Drive involves monitoring Gemini’s work, and the user is currently working on it. A special sidebar is supposed to analyze the content and suggest various things to the user. The problem is that the aforementioned Kevin Bankston does not he agreed to such analyses, and Gemini reviewed and summarized his tax documents anyway.

Kevin described his adventure on Twitter: I just opened my tax return in Google Docs – and uninvited, Gemini summarized it. So… Gemini automatically processes even private documents that I open in Google Docs? What’s going on, people. I didn’t ask for this. Now I have to find a new setting I didn’t know about to turn it off (AI smoothed translation).

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

Although Kevin managed to find the correct settings, he noticed that the feature was already disabled, so Gemini should not be able to access or summarize the documents. Google does not provide any details on how to effectively disable the Gemini integration, I suggest you simply unsubscribe from Workspace Labs altogether if you want to prevent Gemini from viewing your Google Drive documents/files.