Android smartphone owners who have installed the Gemini app may not be aware that their assistant now has access to personal messages, calls, and work data. To avoid this, you need to manually change the settings or uninstall the app completely.
Android smartphone owners who have installed the Gemini app may not be aware that their assistant now has access to personal messages, calls, and work data. To avoid this, you need to manually change the settings or uninstall the app completely.
As TechSpot reports, Google is sending out emails to users about Gemini’s new integration with Android apps, including Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities. Of particular note is the fact that even if the user hasn’t enabled the Gemini Apps Activity setting, the AI assistant can still access data — unless the option has been disabled previously.
Gemini already works with other Google products like Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Chrome, but the Android update is a step toward even deeper integration. While the letter mentions the ability to disable access, Google doesn’t provide any clear instructions. To stop Gemini from accessing other apps, you have to manually turn off each of them in your profile menu, or completely deactivate the assistant in Android settings. Even with Gemini Apps Activity turned off, according to research by Tuta (a secure email service), the app still stores user activity data for up to 72 hours.
Users who haven’t installed Gemini need not worry. However, completely removing the app requires command line access via the Android Debug Bridge, which is something only experienced users can do. For those who want to avoid Google Assistant altogether, there are alternative private Android builds available — GrapheneOS, LineageOS, or E/OS/.
Google, like other tech giants (Microsoft, Apple, OpenAI), is actively implementing generative AI into its services. At the same time, this raises more and more questions about privacy, data retention, and controllability of such integration. As AI assistants gain more power on users' devices, so does the responsibility for transparent information and choices that people have.
We previously reported on how Cloudflare launched a tool that blocks AI crawlers from accessing content by default without permission or compensation. Website owners will also have the option to receive rewards for accessing their content — «Pay to Crawl.»
