logo
Is Google's AI secretly reading your private texts? Here's what's really happening—and how to stop it before it's too late

Is Google's AI secretly reading your private texts? Here's what's really happening—and how to stop it before it's too late

Time of India10-07-2025
Google's AI now reads your messages—what's really going on, and how can you stop it?-
Google's Gemini AI has officially begun scanning third-party apps like WhatsApp and Messages on Android devices—and that's raising serious privacy concerns; as per recent Forbes report. Starting July 7, Google quietly enabled Gemini to access your apps to help with daily tasks like sending messages, making calls, or setting timers. But here's the twist: while Google claims it won't use your message data for AI training, the lines between assistance and surveillance have started to blur. Many users didn't explicitly agree to this level of access—and they may not even realize it's happening.
What's really going on with Google and Microsoft AI reading texts?
A growing number of users are raising red flags about
AI privacy concerns with Google and Microsoft
, especially after reports revealed that their AI systems may be quietly analyzing private messages. While these tech giants claim it's to improve user experience with smarter replies and personalized suggestions, critics argue it's a massive overstep. The unsettling truth is that if you're using default settings in apps like Google Messages or Microsoft Teams, your texts could be scanned by AI without your full awareness. This silent data processing raises major ethical and security questions—and it's crucial that users understand how to take back control.
Google (and Microsoft)
have begun integrating AI into messaging platforms, and these systems are reportedly capable of scanning your private texts.
This goes beyond simple message summarization—they're
actively reading and processing
your conversations.
The intent behind this is to enhance user experience—like generating contextual replies, proactive suggestions, etc.—but the methods raise
serious privacy concerns
.
What is Google Gemini doing inside your messaging apps?
On July 7, 2025, Google rolled out an update allowing Gemini AI to access third-party apps on Android phones. This includes WhatsApp, Messages, and other popular chat apps, even if you didn't directly invite Gemini to do so. The company claims this helps users 'complete daily tasks,' such as reading messages aloud, replying to them, or initiating calls—but only when prompted.
However, according to Neowin and Ars Technica, there's a gray area. While Gemini isn't actively training on your private messages, it can still read your notifications, see your images, and interact with message content via Google Assistant or the Utilities app—even if you didn't enable it knowingly.
This raises big questions: If AI can 'assist' by reading your messages, how private are those messages anymore?
Live Events
Can Google Gemini access your WhatsApp chats?
Technically, yes—but only through indirect paths. Google claims Gemini isn't designed to directly open and scan your WhatsApp conversations. But the integration with Google Assistant changes the story.
Let's say you ask Assistant to read a WhatsApp message or reply to it—that's when Gemini gets access. At that point, the AI engine can read, interpret, and even summarize message content, including media. This level of access doesn't require a deep hack—it's already baked into the OS.
According to Kaspersky's Marc Rivero, this setup "raises serious privacy red flags." Why? Because users aren't giving
clear, informed consent
. 'Private messaging apps are among the most sensitive digital spaces,' he said. 'Automatic access by AI without explicit permission undermines trust.'
Is there a way to disable Gemini from reading your messages?
Unfortunately, there's no single kill switch to shut down Gemini's message-reading capabilities. Google hasn't made it easy to opt out completely. Instead, users need to manually disable Gemini's access app-by-app. This involves digging into Settings, locating Gemini App Activity, and turning off permissions for each app it might access.
Even then, there's no clear confirmation that your messages won't be touched via notifications or other indirect pathways. The system relies on user proactivity, not automatic privacy protections.
As Ars Technica put it bluntly: 'A significant number of users don't want Gemini or other AI engines anywhere near their devices. For now, those users are being left in the dark.'
How does this compare to Microsoft's controversial Recall feature?
Google's move follows a controversial rollout by Microsoft earlier this year. Windows 11's Recall feature introduced an AI memory tool that captures snapshots of everything done on your PC—including open text messages—and stores them locally for AI use. Only Signal managed to block it.
While Google hasn't gone that far, critics say Gemini's access to messaging apps is a similar breach of user expectations. Even if it's not being used to train AI models right now, the possibility of human review or long-term storage of private content is concerning.
What should you do right now to protect your privacy?
If you're an Android user, take these steps immediately:
Open your phone Settings
Go to Apps > Gemini > Permissions
Disable access to apps like WhatsApp, Messages, and others
Go to Google Assistant > Settings > Notifications and limit what it can see
Check Gemini App Activity and turn it off if you don't use the AI assistant
Also remember—your messages might not just involve you. If Gemini is scanning chats, it might be capturing content from others in your conversations, too, without their knowledge or consent.
Why this matters more than ever?
The conversation around AI privacy is no longer hypothetical. These updates prove that tech companies are embedding AI deeper into our personal lives, often with minimal disclosure. While these tools may offer convenience, they also bring new risks—especially in areas like messaging, which users assume are off-limits.
As Gemini and other AI tools evolve, it's crucial to ask hard questions:
Who controls the data AI sees?
Are users truly opting in, or just being quietly enrolled?
What transparency exists for users to audit this behavior?
Until answers become clearer, the best defense is awareness. Know your settings, limit permissions, and share this information—because privacy isn't just personal anymore.
FAQs:
Q1: How do I stop Google Gemini AI from reading my WhatsApp messages?
You can stop it by disabling Gemini's app access in your Android settings manually.
Q2: Is Google Gemini AI using my messages for AI training?
No, Google says Gemini does not use your messages for training, but it still reads them for tasks.
Economic Times WhatsApp channel
)
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump AI policy: Build supercomputers, fight ‘woke' bias, slash red tape
Trump AI policy: Build supercomputers, fight ‘woke' bias, slash red tape

India Today

time26 minutes ago

  • India Today

Trump AI policy: Build supercomputers, fight ‘woke' bias, slash red tape

President Donald Trump on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping new plan for America's 'global dominance' in artificial intelligence, proposing to cut back environmental regulations to speed up the construction of AI supercomputers while promoting the sale of US-made AI technologies at home and 'AI Action Plan' embraces many of the ideas voiced by tech industry lobbyists and the Silicon Valley investors who backed Trump's election campaign last must once again be a country where innovators are rewarded with a green light, not strangled with red tape,' Trump said at an unveiling event that was co-hosted by the bipartisan Hill and Valley Forum and the 'All-In' podcast, a business and technology show hosted by four tech investors and entrepreneurs, which includes Trump's AI czar, David Sacks. The plan includes some familiar tech lobby pitches. That includes accelerating the sale of AI technology abroad and making it easier to construct the energy-hungry data centre buildings that are needed to form and run AI products. It also includes some AI culture war preoccupations of the circle of venture capitalists who endorsed Trump last signed three executive orders on Wednesday to deliver on the plan. They seek to fast-track permitting of AI construction projects, expand US tech exports and get rid of 'woke' in had given his tech advisers six months to come up with new AI policies after revoking President Joe Biden's signature AI guardrails on his first day in PLAN: GLOBAL DOMINANCE, CUTTING REGULATIONSThe plan prioritises AI innovation and adoption, urging the removal of any barriers that could slow down adoption across industries and government. The nation's policy, Trump said, will be to do 'whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence.'Yet it also seeks to guide the industry's growth to address a longtime rallying point for the tech industry's loudest Trump backers: countering the liberal bias they see in AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Google's plan aims to block the government from contracting with tech companies unless they 'ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.' The plan says the nation's leading AI models should protect free speech and be 'founded on American values,' though it doesn't define which values those should a former PayPal executive and now Trump's top AI adviser, has been criticizing 'woke AI' for more than a year, fueled by Google's February 2024 rollout of an AI image generator. When asked to show an American Founding Father, it created pictures of Black, Asian, and Native American quickly fixed its tool, but the 'Black George Washington' moment remained a parable for the problem of AI's perceived political bias, taken up by X owner Elon Musk, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, Vice President JD Vance and Republican among the plan's goals is to speed up permitting and loosen environmental regulation to accelerate construction on new data centers and factories. It condemns 'radical climate dogma' and recommends lifting environmental restrictions, including clean air and water has previously paired AI's need for huge amounts of electricity with his own push to tap into U.S. energy sources, including gas, coal and nuclear.'We will be adding at least as much electric capacity as China,' Trump said at the Wednesday event. 'Every company will be given the right to build their own power plant.'Many tech giants are already well on their way toward building new data centers in the U.S. and around the world. OpenAI announced this week that it has switched on the first phase of a massive data center complex in Abilene, Texas, part of an Oracle-backed project known as Stargate that Trump promoted earlier this year. Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and xAI also have major projects tech industry has pushed for easier permitting rules to get its computing facilities connected to power, but the AI building boom has also contributed to spiking demand for fossil fuel production, which contributes to global Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday called on the world's major tech firms to power data centers completely with renewables by plan includes a strategy to disincentivize states from aggressively regulating AI technology, calling on federal agencies not to provide funding to states with burdensome regulations.'We need one common sense federal standard that supersedes all states, supersedes everybody,' Trump said, 'so you don't end up in litigation with 43 states at one time.'WHO BENEFITS FROM TRUMP 'S AI ACTION PLAN?There are sharp debates on how to regulate AI, even among the influential venture capitalists who have been debating it on their favorite medium: the some Trump backers, particularly Andreessen, have advocated an 'accelerationist' approach that aims to speed up AI advancement with minimal regulation, Sacks has described himself as taking a middle road of techno-realism.'Technology is going to happen. Trying to stop it is like ordering the tides to stop. If we don't do it, somebody else will,' Sacks said on the 'All-In' Tuesday, more than 100 groups, including labor unions, parent groups, environmental justice organizations and privacy advocates, signed a resolution opposing Trump's embrace of industry-driven AI policy and calling for a 'People's AI Action Plan' that would 'deliver first and foremost for the American people.'J.B. Branch, Big Tech accountability advocate at the watchdog group Public Citizen, which signed the resolution, called the plan a 'sellout.''Under this plan, tech giants get sweetheart deals while everyday Americans will see their electricity bills rise to subsidize discounted power for massive AI data centers,' Branch said in a statement Wednesday. 'Americans deserve an AI future rooted in safety, fairness, and accountability — not a handout to billionaires.'- EndsTune InMust Watch

Trump Weighed Nvidia Breakup But Was Told It'd Be ‘Hard'
Trump Weighed Nvidia Breakup But Was Told It'd Be ‘Hard'

Mint

timean hour ago

  • Mint

Trump Weighed Nvidia Breakup But Was Told It'd Be ‘Hard'

President Donald Trump said he considered attempting to break up Nvidia Corp. to increase competition in artificial intelligence chips before finding out 'it's not easy in that business.' 'I said, 'Look, we'll break this guy up,' before I learned the facts here,' Trump said Wednesday at an AI summit in Washington. Trump said he was told by aides that doing so was 'very hard' and that the company held a substantial advantage over all competitors that would take years to overcome. 'I figured we could go in and we could sort of break them up a little bit, get them a little competition, and I found out it's not easy in that business,' Trump added. Nvidia declined to comment. Trump went on to praise Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, who was in the audience for his event. Huang met earlier this month with the president at the White House, and last week the company announced it would be allowed to resume selling its H20 artificial intelligence chips to China as part of a recent trade truce with Beijing. The Trump administration had previously frozen the sale of those chips to China. 'What a job you've done,' Trump said. Throughout his address, the president name-checked and complimented Huang, along with other tech industry leaders, for their investments in the US. Earlier in the day, Huang used his session on stage to praise the president's approach to AI. 'America's unique advantage that no other country can possibly have is President Trump,' Huang said. Nvidia earlier this month became the first company ever to surpass $4 trillion in market capitalization, as it has profited heavily from the boom in demand for AI hardware to power large language models. The Justice Department in 2024 conducted an investigation seeking evidence of possible anticompetitive behavior by Nvidia. Trump at the event Wednesday unveiled his AI Action Plan, which, paired with a series of executive orders, is designed to aid the industry by reducing regulatory burdens. With assistance from Ian King. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

Trumps AI plan prioritizes deregulation to boost US dominance
Trumps AI plan prioritizes deregulation to boost US dominance

Mint

timean hour ago

  • Mint

Trumps AI plan prioritizes deregulation to boost US dominance

President Donald Trump unveiled an aggressive, low-regulation strategy on Wednesday to boost big tech's race to stay ahead of China on artificial intelligence and cement US dominance in the fast-expanding field. Trump's 25-page "America's AI Action Plan" outlines three aims: accelerating innovation, building infrastructure, and leading internationally on AI. The administration frames AI advancement as critical to maintaining economic and military supremacy. Environmental consequences are sidelined in the planning document. "America is the country that started the AI race, and as president of the United States, I'm here today to declare that America is going to win it," Trump told an AI event in Washington. "Winning this competition will be a test of our capacities unlike anything since the dawn of the space age," he said, before signing several executive orders to give components of the strategy additional legal weight. In its collection of more than 90 government proposals, Trump's plan calls for sweeping deregulation, with the administration promising to "remove red tape and onerous regulation" that could hinder private sector AI development. In his wide-ranging speech, Trump insisted that "winning the AI race will demand a new spirit of patriotism and national loyalty in Silicon Valley and beyond." Trump complained that for too long "many of our largest tech companies have reaped the blessings of American freedom while building their factories in China, hiring workers in India and slashing profits in Ireland." The plan also asked federal agencies to find ways to legally stop US states from implementing their own AI regulations and threatened to rescind federal aid to states that did so. "We have to have a single federal standard, not 50 different states, regulating this industry of the future," Trump said. The American Civil Liberties Union warned this would thwart "initiatives to uphold civil rights and shield communities from biased AI systems in areas like employment, education, health care, and policing." The Trump action plan also calls for AI systems to be "free from ideological bias" and designed to pursue objective truth rather than what the administration calls "social engineering agendas," such as diversity and inclusion. This criterion would apply to AI companies wanting to do business with the US government. Trump also called for AI development to be broadly immune from copyright claims currently the subject of legal battles saying it was a "common sense" approach. "You can't be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book, or anything else that you've read or studied, you're supposed to pay for," he said. A major focus in the plan involves building AI infrastructure, including streamlined permitting for data centers and energy facilities that would overlook environmental concerns to build as swiftly as possible. The administration, which rejects international science showing a growing climate crisis, proposes creating new environmental review exemptions for data center construction and expanding access to federal lands for AI infrastructure development. Trump also called for the swift construction of coal and nuclear plants to help provide the energy needed to power the data centers. The strategy also calls for efforts to "counter Chinese influence in international governance bodies" and strengthen export controls on advanced AI computing technology. At the same time, the strategy calls on the government to champion US technology in conquering overseas markets, a priority that was spelled out in an executive order. These plans will help "ensure America sets the technological gold standard worldwide, and that the world continues to run on American technology," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. Critics of the plan said the policies were a gift to US tech giants that were scaling back their goals for zero carbon emissions in order to meet the acute computing needs for AI. "Trump's plan reads like a twisted Gilded Age playbook that rewards the rich while punishing everyday Americans and the environment," said Jean Su of the Center for Biological Diversity. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store