Gmail Users Were Automatically Opted In to This Controversial Setting. Here's How To Turn It Off.

Another day, another “feature” turned on in a load-bearing app that you might want to turn off.

For Gmail users, there is an automatic opt-in that may allow Google access to your emailed data (think: your personal and work messages, your attachments) “to train AI models,” cybersecurity experts allege. If you don’t want this information shared, you need to adjust your settings.

“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,” Engineer Dave Jones shared on X earlier this week. “You have to manually turn off Smart Features in the Setting menu in TWO locations.”

In the race for companies to get an ROI on AI, we’re already seeing language learning models running out of new, human-generated data to train on. And as HuffPost has previously reported, tools like AI assistants that automatically take meeting notes were already being considered an opportunity to passively gain data from users in work settings. (Even boring corporate meetings aren’t exempt!)

“Google uses information to improve our services and to develop new products, features and technologies that benefit our users and the public. For example, we use publicly available information to help train Google’s AI models and build products and features like Google Translate, Gemini Apps, and Cloud AI capabilities,” according to the company’s privacy policy.