Consider this a belated PSA: A recent change to Google’s privacy settings allows the company to store more of your data, including media such as “images, files, audio and video recordings,” to improve its AI models. In other words, if you upload any media to Google’s Search services, it is used to train artificial intelligence until you opt out.
The change comes via an under-the-radar update to the privacy settings of Google Search services, announced via customer email in June. With the update, the company recruited people into this expanded AI training in the name of giving users more control over their saved history and personalized recommendations.
The update introduced two new settings, Search Services History and Personalized Recommendations, which let you configure how your activity is used to personalize your Google experience and how long your web and app activity is saved.
This update goes beyond Google Search itself and also includes other search services such as Maps, Shopping, Flights, Hotels, Translate and News.
For example, when you take a picture and use Google Lens to visually search for something, that picture can now be saved for AI training.
Likewise, if you use a newer one Search live With the voice search feature in the Google app, these audio recordings can be saved just like any other Google voice search. If you use Google Translate for the spoken experience, that audio is also saved.
The changes reflect a broader industry shift toward collecting data by any means necessary to improve AI services. Instead of relying solely on data pulled from the web, Google and others are increasingly collecting data that people download or create while using their services. Meta is another example of a consumer-facing tech company doing it at scale, trains its artificial intelligence on users’ images and the media as well Content recorded by AI glasses.
Google directly acknowledges the use of media training, telling customers in that email: “Like your Search Services History, the media you store is used to develop and improve Google services and technologies, including AI models and security measures.”
His help documents highlights that the company “uses your history to provide, develop, and improve its services (such as training generative artificial intelligence models) and to protect Google, its users, and the public with the help of human reviewers.”
Some of this storage is temporary and related to product performance, but according to Google’s own language, saved media can also be stored specifically to train its AI.
Adjusting your settings
The good news is that you have some control here. you can change your options on Search Services History and Personalization of search services pages. In the first, you can uncheck the “Save Media” box separately from the “Search Services History” box, or uncheck both. You can also configure how soon you want the saved data to be deleted automatically after 3 months, 18 months or 36 months.
From there, you can go to this page Web and App Activity, Timeline, YouTube History and more. to learn about other privacy settings, including
In addition to stored media, Google also uses your search history, location, and other information from the websites you visit to personalize your experience on Google, including where ads are shown.
Prior to this update, Google allowed you to configure which historical search data is stored through the “Web and App Activity” settings. This is now split into two settings: Web and App Activity data, and a new Search data setting that is enabled by default.
This means that if you change your Web and App Activity data storage settings to opt out of having your data stored by the tech giant, the update will no longer affect your use of Google Search services as it is a separate option.
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