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Topics: Google, Technology, News
Gerrard Kaonga
Gmail users have been told they might want to consider opting out of a Google service if they have fears about how their data is being used by the company.
Blogger and engineer Dave Jones took to X in November last year to warn people they might want to think about checking their Google Gmail settings if they had privacy concerns.
In a post, he wrote: “IMPORTANT message for everyone using Gmail.
“You have been automatically OPTED IN to allow Gmail to access all your private messages & attachments to train AI models.
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“You have to manually turn off Smart Features in the Setting menu in TWO locations.”
He then shared some screengrabs from Google’s settings for Gmail, highlighting the 'smart features' toggle.
The toggle read: “When you turn this setting on, you agree to let Gmail, Chat, and Meet use your content and activity in these products to provide smart features and personalize your experience.”
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Jones also posted a screengrab of the 'smart features' toggle for Google’s other products and noted it had a similar statement.
According to a HuffPost report, having these features toggled on, which are automatic, ultimately means that Google may be able to use your email data to 'to train AI models'.
A spokesperson for Google has argued against these claims however, telling HuffPost that the reports are 'misleading' and added that 'Gmail Smart Features have existed for many years, and we do not use your Gmail content for training our Gemini AI model'.
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The spokesperson continued: “We are always transparent and clear if we make changes to our terms of service and policies.”
Regardless of this, there are those who would still prefer to turn off the feature all the same.
To turn it off, you need to open your settings and opt out in two different locations.
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On desktop, you go to your settings (the little cog up in the top corner) and look in the 'General' tab. There, you can do your first opt-out and unselect the 'smart features'.
Next, you click into the 'Manage Workplace smart feature settings', and it will take you to a secondary pop-up that allows you to toggle on and off the features in Google Workspace and other Google products.
Opting out of the smart features will mean that 'Ask Gemini' will be turned off and it will no longer give you the option to summarize content as well as personalized search and events from your email being automatically added to your calendar.
The second action will opt you out of features showing restaurant reservations and to-go orders in Maps, suggested tickets or loyalty cards to use in Wallet and answers, reminders and suggestions from Google Assistant and the Gemini app.
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If you are trying to do this on mobile, it is basically the same process.
Going to your settings page and selecting 'data privacy' from there you can toggle off 'smart features’'and click into the 'Google Workspace smart features' menu to turn off the feature for Workspace and Google products.
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While this might satisfy those who are very conscious of how their data is used, it could mean you will no longer get to enjoy features many Gmail users have grown accustomed to.
Things like your emails automatically being filtered into 'promotional' and 'social' may no longer work and even spell-check, grammar check and autocorrect are currently tied to the Gemini opt-in.
UNILAD has contacted Google for further comment.