Google has made changes to its privacy policy, stating that it may use publicly available data to train its AI models and create products.
Prior to the update on July 1, the company’s privacy policy said it may collect public data to train its “language models.” However, the policy now replaces this phase with “AI models” and highlights Google Bard, among other products.
“For example, we may collect information that’s publicly available online or from other public sources to help train Google’s AI models and build products and features like Google Translate, Bard, and Cloud AI capabilities,” Google’s updated policy reads.
AI Tools and Web Scraping
The update to Google’s privacy policy comes amid widespread debate about the use of public data to train commercial AI models. In a class-action lawsuit filed on July 28, OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, was accused of using “stolen data” scraped from the web to train its popular chatbot.
Amid this debate, companies are taking a stand against web scraping. Twitter recently restricted the number of tweets users can view per day, and Reddit introduced a controversial pricing policy for its API. Data scraping does not fall foul of privacy laws in many countries. However, it remains a hotly contested issue.
Previously, concerns surrounding web scraping generally focussed on potential privacy harms, such as a situation where a person or bot collects information from a public Facebook or LinkedIn profile.
The advent of AI tools and large language models has also put a spotlight on the value of datasets. These vast troves of data are used to train AI models and improve their functions. However, there are concerns about privacy and lack of financial reward for the individuals who data belong to.
How to Keep Your Data Safe From Google
There are several ways to limit the personal information Google can collect about you.
In your account settings, you can restrict Google from collecting data about your Web & App Activity, Location History, Voice & Audio Activity, and more. Read our article about optimizing your Google privacy settings to learn more.
You can opt for a browser with a built-in VPN. This lets you hide your IP address and encrypt your traffic information every time you get on the internet, meaning Google’s search engine and the websites you visit will get even less information about you.
For even better security, you can also use a private browser and search engine, like Brave and DuckDuckGo. There are many other privacy-focused alternatives to Google’s products.
