A little piece of my soul shrivels up every time I get a message laying out how another company plans to use personal data in ever encroaching ways for AI training. I got one of those emails recently from Google, with the subject line: “New privacy settings for Search services.” It’s part of Google’s global rollout happening over the next few months that will change how it handles users’ Search history data.
Every piece of media, from photos you upload for reverse image searches to audio of you speaking with Google Translate, may be retained in your account and used to improve Google’s AI models.
This new option in Google’s account settings, called Search Services History, was already enabled when I visited the page for the first time. (If a user previously disabled Google’s Web & App Activity and Search Personalization toggles, then it would be off.) Also, the box to save all my uploaded media from Google Search for AI training was already checked. Great.
When this rolls out to your account, you can visit Google’s My Activity page and then select the Search Services History tab to opt out. This page gives you a solid sense of what Google saves from your Search history. It’s also where you can turn off the entire setting and delete your activity. It’s critical to uncheck the box next to Save media if you don’t want your image uploads used for AI training.
Courtesy of Reece Rogers
It’s worth doing this change now rather than later. There’s not much you can do after your media data is thrown into the AI blender. “If your saved media is used to train our AI models, it is disconnected from your Google Account. This training data will be kept for up to 4 years, even if you delete the original activity,” read the pop-up when I turned off this feature. That’s such a long time for my random image Search uploads to float around in the digital ether.
“These new settings help users get more relevant results and revisit their searches—including visual and voice searches—and they can be turned on or off at any time,” says Davis Thompson, a Google spokesperson, over email when reached for comment. He did not answer WIRED’s question about this feature being on by default.
What’s really being saved here? Google is clear that it’s starting to store much more than just what you type into Search. “Your saved media includes your images, files, and audio and video recordings from your interactions with Search services,” reads the page’s description. “This includes things like Google Lens images, recordings from Search Live or Translate speaking practice, content you upload, and voice searches.”