Jul 16, 2024Single source
Gemini AI Allegedly Reads Google Drive Files Without Explicit User Consent
Rogue: Caused harmAI loose in the worldData exfiltrationDERIVED
Approved by person, Oct 11, 2026. How entries are approved
Kevin Bankston, a privacy activist, claims that Google's Gemini AI scans private Google Drive PDFs without explicit user consent. Bankston reports that after using Gemini on one document, the AI continues to access similar files automatically. Google disputes these claims, stating that Gemini requires proactive user activation and operates within privacy-preserving settings.
What this means for youIf you use Gemini with Google Drive, check its app access and activity settings, and ask whether it can read files you did not open. At work, confirm which cloud files AI tools can reach before you share sensitive documents.
Sources
- AI Incident Databasehttps://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/743
Data from the AI Incident Database (incidentdatabase.ai), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. IAAI-21.
Source data license: CC BY-SA 4.0 (database). Report contents keep their own rights; reports.text, submissions, images and videos are excluded from the data license.
rogue:R4
Covered by snapshot 45
da93f03b406f409940d0a6ef47b526607f82ebf457d98f69299b88aceede576a
This entry is record number 2028. It has not been edited since it was approved; the hash above would not match if it had. How to verify