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You're not alone: This email from Google's Gemini team is concerning (www.androidauthority.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Google’s Gemini team is apparently sending out emails about an upcoming change to how Gemini interacts with apps on Android devices. The email informs users that, come July 7, 2025, Gemini will be able to “help you use Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities on your phone, whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.” Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns among those who’ve received the email and those using the AI assistant on their Android devices.

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[–] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I do have it disabled, but this article suggests that it will ignore that and it will be integrated in apps that I really really don't want it in. I could stomach it if it was search and other functionality like that only, or even if it 100% ran local with no ability to phone home and train on my data, but it doesn't. Not that it can be listening to calls, reading messages, etc, I'm definitely hard out.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I've seen an article that describes opting out of the app integration as well (even though that by default it'll be on. There should be a class action against Google doing that! That said, I can't see Europe taking this as it is.)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Re-read the article. All this feature does is give you the ability to say 'set a timer for 10 minutes' or 'start a phone call to John'.

    If you have 'Gemini apps activity' off then they won't use anything you say to train their models.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    There is a clarification from Google in he article that I don't believe was there when I first posted. It still by default allows Gemini to have access to things I don't want it to access, which is anything. It can be blocked through the Gemini apps activity, but I don't think that was clear in the OG text.

    None the less, they claim that it will be completely offline and that no information will be used to train their models. I believe that's probably true in the short term, but I don't trust them as far as I can throw them, and I've got fucked up shoulders. I've little doubt that they will change policy in 6 months to a year so that some data is sent anonymously.

    I just want it so if I say don't allow this thing at all, ever, that stays true and they don't make me later opt out of that thing.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    I think the article is misunderstanding what is happening (though to be clear I think the email is at fault for that). Google is making it so that app developers can integrate Gemini better by allowing Gemini to interact with those apps. There is a menu inside Gemini where you can switch these interactions on and off (Inside Gemini, click your profile in the upper right corner and press apps in the menu).

    I'm assuming from the email that this will be enabled by default which is a choice they've made and which absolutely could be argued as invasive. That being said you'd actively have to use Gemini and have it be active on your phone in order for it to interact with those apps.

    Assuming Google records whatever you do on your phone whenever you do those things, which many privacy minded people of course legitimately worry about and feel uncomfortable with to various degrees, this is not really anything but another way for your assistant to do more things. If they want to read your stuff that's not really dependent on a switch in the Gemini app.

    So if you have Gemini entirely disabled I don't think this is relevant. Only if you actively seek to use it and do not want it to be able to integrate with external applications will these settings be relevant to you.

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