Google's Viral Gemini Banana Trend is Fun, But It Comes With a Privacy Risk

Gemini's Nano Banana trend is currently sweeping social media platforms. With more than 500 million image generations, this custom artificial intelligence (AI) model allows users to upload an image and make complex edits using text prompts. While the Gemini feature is fun to use, it has again sparked debates on data privacy and safety, as every single conversation with the AI chatbot, as well as the uploaded images, is stored by the Mountain View-based tech giant and can be used to train its AI models and improve the services.

What Is Google's Policy on Data Collection and Usage via Gemini

According to the company's support page titled Gemini Apps Privacy Hub, Google collects all information a user provides to the chatbot, including text and voice prompts; uploaded files, videos, screens, photos, and web pages; audio, video, and screens shared with Live, and more.

In addition, the tech giant also collects all Gemini responses, information from apps connected with Gemini and the apps where Gemini is available, device data, as well as data of user interaction with public Gemini app content.

Put simply, Google collects data from every interaction a user makes with Gemini. So, goes without saying that every single image of yourself and your loved ones that you have shared with Gemini can and will be collected by default. And how is it used? This is what the company says.

As per the tech giant and its Privacy Policy, user data is used to develop new services, personalise services, measure performance, and more. Google also highlights that these uses “extend to the generative AI models and other machine-learning technologies powering our services.” This means the data can also be used to improve the existing and future Gemini models.

Apart from this, the company also states that human reviewers, including trained reviewers from its service providers, get to review some of the collected data. “Please don't enter confidential information that you wouldn't want a reviewer to see or Google to use,” the support page mentions.

How Can You Stop Google from Collecting User Data from Gemini Conversations

The way to stop Google from collecting data from the conversations you've had with Gemini exists within the app and the Gemini website, but it is not advertised by the company outside of the support pages.

According to another support page, users can opt out of data collection and stop the company from training AI models on their data by turning off Gemini Apps Activity. On the mobile app, the option can be found by tapping on the profile button on the top right side and locating the Gemini Apps Activity option. On the website, users need to click on the “Settings & help” and go to the “Activity” option.

Once on this screen, users will see an option dubbed “Keep activity,” followed by a toggle. By default, this toggle is kept turned on, as long as the user is 18 years or older. This can be changed to either “Turn off” or “Turn off and delete activity.” The former ensures that in the future, data is not collected from any new conversations, while the latter also deletes older conversations from Google's servers.

“When you choose to delete activity manually or if the activity is deleted automatically, we immediately start the process of removing it from the product and our systems. First, we aim to immediately remove it from view. Then, we begin a process designed to safely and completely delete the data from our storage systems,” Google says.

Do note that even when Keep Activity is off, the conversations are saved for up to 72 hours. This allows the company to provide the service and process any feedback. This activity does not appear in the user's Gemini Apps Activity.