Congress has failed to pass a three-week extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), with the House voting 218-198 against reauthorizing the controversial warrantless wiretapping authority through July 2nd. After a short-term extension earlier this year, the spying program now appears set to lapse for at least a week. This is the nightmare scenario FISA's proponents have been warning about - but it doesn't actually mean the US has lost its surveillance capabilities.
Proponents of a clean extension claim a lapse will hinder intelligence agencies' efforts to thwart potential terrorist attacks, with surveillan …
Heads-up, my fellow Android-appreciating animals: Google’s in the midst of rolling out a subtle change to its privacy settings that’s well worth your while to notice.
The change includes a new clause that says the company can use images, files, video, and audio from your interactions with Google Lens, Search, and Gemini Live to train and improve its AI models.
By default, that switch will soon be on and active for your account.
But with about 20 seconds of one-time effort, you can opt out and flip it off (both literally and metaphorically, if you’re so inclined) once and for all.
Lemme show ya how.
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First things first — the nature of the change: According to Google, starting in the next few days, a new “Search Services History” section within the general Google account settings will lead to a significant-seeming policy shift. As per an email the company sent out to users this week:
Your media [will now be] saved when Search Services History is on. Saved media includes your images, files, audio, and video from your interactions with Search services to help improve your experience. … Your saved media is also used to develop and improve Google services and technologies, including AI models and safety measures.
Riiiiiiiiiiight.
Now, to its credit, Google does say the data will never be associated with your account or identity once it’s used for these purposes, and it’ll rely on “filters” to “automatically remove a broad range of identifying info or sensitive personal information.” But still, whether you’re working with important corporate info or simply put off by the idea of your personal media being fed into the AI training machine, this may be news you aren’t exactly thrilled to hear.
If you’re finding AI increasingly creepy or you’re just not so keen on knowing whatever media you submit to search-related services will be used to train and develop AI for the future, now’s the time to proactively speak up and change your Google account settings to shut down this setup before it begins.
That, unfortunately, is where things get slightly complicated — ’cause for most of us, this new Search Services History section doesn’t seem to be present and available just yet.
But that doesn’t mean you’re plum out of luck.
To start on your AI training opt-out adventure, make sure you’re signed into whatever Google account you rely on for work and/or personal purposes, then head to the Google Activity Controls page and see if you see a section there called “Search Services History.”
If you do, this is especially easy for you: Just use the option right then and there to disable the “Save Media” setting within that section, which will stop any media files from being saved and used without eliminating the entire history of things you’ve searched. (If you’d rather eliminate all of your Google Search history from being saved and used even for your own future discovery and recommendations, you can also opt to turn that entire section off. Just be aware that it may have some wide-reaching effects on the personalization you see across a lot of Google services.)
If you don’t see that section — and, again, that appears to be the case for most of us at this point — you’ve got two options for the moment:
The choice is ultimately 100% yours — but in this case, it’s up to you to take action and opt yourself out if you aren’t comfortable with the default. It’s an unfortunate position to be put in, but now you at least know what’s happening and how you can make your own decision to take back control.
Find the tips and tools that’ll *actually* help you with my free Android Intelligence newsletter. No hype, no nonsense — just useful new stuff in your inbox every Friday, from one (alleged) human to another.
Google is making some changes to how it saves your interactions with Search. In an email sent to users, Google says it will save the images, files, audio, and video you use to search under a new "Search Services History" setting.
That includes the images you search for with Google Lens, recordings from its real-time Search Live tool, voice searches, and phrases spoken into Translate, according to an update on the company's website. You can switch off the Search Services History setting and disable the "Save Media" option if you don't want Google to save these interactions.
Google says it will use your Search Services History to "provide, d …
New York expands street sensors to map crossings, near-misses and traffic patterns.Apple’s latest Safari privacy campaign is more than pre-WWDC marketing. It is an early signal of how the company plans to frame artificial intelligence (AI): as something that only works if users trust the platform behind it.
The week before WWDC is often significant, as Apple tends to make announcements it simply can’t fit into the keynote itself. This year’s first pre-show reveal is a new campaign focused on privacy that shows how much more private Safari is than rival browsers; there’s even a highly entertaining video that makes the point.
Apple has been building privacy protections into Safari for years. The browser protects you from malicious scripts that might attempt to access passwords or credit card information. Safari also tells you what data an extension wants to access and can restrict access to match your settings. It blocks third-party cookies by default, detects and removes trackers, and has measures in place to prevent data companies from identifying — and following — you through device characteristics.
That’s even before Apple’s powerful Private Browsing mode, which includes meaningful protections. The company has put together a page packed with resources to explain the privacy protections it has in place across its platforms.
Privacy is critical to Apple — not only because the company regards it as a human right, but because it correctly recognizes that to make new generations of sensor-laden technologies it must ensure privacy is protected. Without privacy and trust, people won’t use the technology.
The truth is that people are becoming increasingly concerned about how the digital devices we depend on for convenience are now being used for different kinds of surveillance, and we need to be convinced that our personal data is protected. We do not want every aspect of our life to become fodder to feed a digital dystopia, even as we still want the positive solutions technology promises.
Think about the Apple Watch. Consider the data it gathers: distance walked, calories burned, and more — it’s a rich trove of personally identifiable data that no one really wants to share with others without consent. Apple Watch is not the only Apple device that is gathering information, even your web browser captures a great deal of it. Hence, the focus on Safari in Apple’s new campaign.
Privacy will become an even greater concern as AI spreads. Data brokering services already make extensive use of AI to analyze and identify patterns in the online data they harvest. AI deployed without strong privacy protections poses serious risks to the way we live, while the consolidation of AI ownership in the hands of a few companies risks creating dangerous imbalances of power. That’s the context in which private data needs to be protected, making privacy an essential component of a positive tech-augmented future.
Apple’s focus on privacy is far from new; it has been consistent in this work for many years. Competitors often accuse Apple of hypocrisy, but the company has been arguing for privacy’s importance for more than a decade. Others have adopted some of the same principles, though not all of them — and while Apple may sometimes use privacy as a moat for its own products and services, that does not diminish its value.
It’s with all this in mind that I consider Apple’s latest privacy ad campaign and its rollout just before WWDC, where it is expected to introduce new AI services. That Apple’s new privacy campaign seems not to have made the final cut for the show tells me the company has much more to discuss on the topic, particularly around Apple Intelligence.
When Apple introduces its new AI features at WWDC it will do so while celebrating the privacy built into them. The current privacy ad campaign will be part of an overall push as the company explains that its ecosystem can run third-party AI services while also offering its own bespoke Apple Intelligence AI to do really useful things in complete privacy.
This isn’t just a competitive moat, it’s a realistic assessment in practice. It shows that Apple understands that in the age of AI, privacy matters more than ever. As AI becomes central to everyday digital experiences, privacy is no longer optional — and Apple is prepared to make the case to support it.
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