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Google recently made significant revisions to its privacy policy, empowering it to use public data for AI training, enhancing translation systems, text generation systems, and various cloud AI services.

Generative AI systems such as Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT are trained on vast amounts of data for analysing human queries and responses, and have certainly raised valid privacy concerns. While public posts and reviews are inherently accessible to anyone, the primary focus now revolves around how this information may be used, rather than who can access it. The legality of such data collection practices remains uncertain.

Web scraping, a technique employed by tech giants, has gained attention in discussions surrounding consumer data use and privacy. It is the process of using bots to extract content and data from a website. Elon Musk, among other prominent figures, has voiced concerns about web scraping, linking it to recent Twitter issues and system manipulation.

Safeguarding your data: Practical measures

If you have reservations about Google’s updated privacy policy, there are steps you can take to protect your data and privacy:

Be mindful of what you share: Only make public posts and share information that you are comfortable with Google, or any other entity, accessing and utilising.

Utilise Google’s privacy controls: Review your privacy settings within your Google account. Opt out of options like “Web & App Activity,” “Location History,” and “Voice & Audio Activity” to exert more control over your data.

Explore alternative services: Consider switching to alternative providers with stricter privacy policies for services like search (e.g., DuckDuckGo), email (e.g., ProtonMail), video sharing (e.g., Vimeo), and web browsing (e.g., Brave).

Enable private browsing: When using Google services, activate incognito or private browsing mode to minimize the collection of your browsing history.

Stay informed: Read and understand the privacy policies of websites, mobile apps, and other services before using them. Be cautious with platforms that explicitly share your data with Google.

Communicate your concerns: Contact Google directly to express any concerns or questions you may have regarding how your data is used to train their AI models.

As AI becomes more integrated, finding a delicate balance between technological advancements and safeguarding privacy will require concerted efforts from both tech companies and individuals.