Previously, Gmail, Chat, and Meet users had the option to turn on Google’s artificial intelligence program. But a complaint filed Tuesday night in federal court in San Jose, Calif., says the Alphabet unit “secretly enabled” Gemini on all of those apps in October, allowing them to collect personal data “without the user’s knowledge or consent.”
According to the proposed class action lawsuit, the company allows users to disable Gemini, but disabling the AI tool requires digging deep into Google’s privacy settings.
If you don’t, Google will use Gemini to “access and examine your entire recorded history of your private communications, including literally every email and attachment sent to or from your Gmail account,” the complaint says.
The complaint alleges that Google violates the California Invasion of Privacy Act of 1967, which prohibits the interception or secret recording of confidential communications without the consent of all parties involved.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of business hours, according to the report.