{"slug": "google-can-now-use-your-gmail-drive-and-google-photos-to-target-ads", "title": "Google can now use your Gmail, Drive and Google Photos to target ads", "summary": "Google's updated privacy policy, effective 16 October 2026, adds an exception allowing content from Gmail, Drive and Google Photos to shape personalized ads when users connect those services to Google AI features such as Personal Intelligence in Search, Android Authority reported on 23 October after spotting the 18 added words. The policy now reads that Google does not show personalized ads based on Drive, Gmail or Photos content \"unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads,\" reversing a June 2017 commitment by then-Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene that consumer Gmail content \"will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization.\" Google's help pages state that ads are not based directly on inbox or photo content but on the summaries, excerpts and inferences drawn from it, and that the same connected data can, depending on settings, train its AI and be read by human reviewers.", "body_md": "###### PRIVACY\n\n# Google can now use your Gmail, Drive and Google Photos to target ads\n\nIn 2017, Google said your Gmail would never be scanned for ads. On 16 October 2026 it added an “unless”: connect Gmail, Drive or Google Photos to certain Google AI features, and what Google draws from them can now shape the ads you see. Google’s help pages add that, depending on your settings, the same connected data can train its AI and be read by human reviewers.\n\nUntil this month, Google’s privacy policy said: “We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.”\n\nThe sentence now carries on: “…unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads.” [Android Authority spotted the 18 added words](https://www.androidauthority.com/google-personal-intelligence-privacy-3727111/) on 23 October, a week after they took effect. If you’ve connected Gmail or Google Photos to Personal Intelligence in Google Search, they may apply to you, depending on your settings.\n\n## Quick answer\n\nGoogle’s privacy policy now lets content from Gmail, Drive and Google Photos shape your ads, but only if you connect those apps to Google AI features such as Personal Intelligence in Search. Advertisers don’t get your files; Google uses summaries, excerpts and inferences instead. Depending on your settings, that data can also train Google’s AI.\n\nJoin the MEGA privacy revolution. Create a free MEGA account and get 20 GB of storage with zero-knowledge encryption.\n\n## What changed in Google’s privacy policy?\n\nGoogle added an exception to its rule against using your Gmail, Drive and Google Photos content for ads. Under the [updated privacy policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy), effective 16 October 2026, it won’t do that “unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads.”\n\n**A new paragraph names the services involved.** “Search or Gemini Apps” can access “Google Photos and Workspace apps like Gmail and Drive” if you allow it, and Search may then process that data “to personalize content, including ads.” The [side-by-side comparison](https://policies.google.com/privacy/archive/20261001-20261016?hl=en) Google publishes for each policy version shows every changed line.\n\n**The original promise dates to June 2017.** Diane Greene, then CEO of Google Cloud, wrote that consumer Gmail content “will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization.” That post is still online, but on 16 October 2026 (the day the new policy took effect) Google added a note to it: “If users choose to enable these new features, data from Workspace Apps will be processed to personalize other Google experiences, and depending on a user’s settings, that same subset of data can also be used to show ads.” You can read both on [Google’s blog](https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in-the-enterprise-g-suites-gmail-and-consumer-gmail-to-more-closely-align/).\n\n## What does it mean for your Gmail, Drive files and Google Photos?\n\nOnce you connect them to Personal Intelligence, what’s in them can feed your ads. According to [Google’s help page for the feature](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/16859283), ads “will not be based directly” on your inbox or photo library. What Google does use is the summaries, excerpts and inferences (conclusions it draws about you) that it pulls out to answer your questions, and those “may be used to show you ads”.\n\n### Gmail\n\nReceipts, flight confirmations, delivery updates, newsletters you signed up for: an inbox is a fairly complete record of what you buy and where you go. Google’s own example is AI Mode reading a hotel booking to suggest restaurants nearby. An advertiser selling travel insurance would like to know about that trip too.\n\n### Google Photos\n\nGemini’s help page says that, depending on your settings, “your Google Photos data is used to infer your interests, relationships to people in your photos and where you’ve been, including by associating your face with corresponding location data and timestamps.”\n\nSearch can connect to Google Photos too, though only after you turn on Face Groups, select which face is yours and switch on Estimate missing locations, according to Google’s Search help page. Once that’s done, ads can be based on “personalized content from Google services”, depending on your settings.\n\nThe [Google Photos Safety Center](https://safety.google/products/photos/) now carries the same exception: “We don’t use your photos and videos for advertising, unless you choose to make data from Google Photos available to other Google services that support ads.”\n\n### Drive\n\nThe updated policy puts Drive in the same exception as Gmail and Google Photos: your Drive content can shape your ads once you make it available to a Google service that supports personalised ads. Google’s own example of that kind of service is Search, which “may process some of the data that you allow Search to access to personalize content, including ads.”\n\nSearch can’t connect to Drive yet. Google’s help page says it currently covers Gmail and Google Calendar, “with other Workspace apps coming soon”. When Drive is added and you connect it, the policy already allows information from your files to be used for your ads, depending on your settings.\n\nGemini can connect to Drive today, along with Docs, Sheets and Slides, according to its [Connected Apps page](https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/16836988). Google says Gemini chats aren’t currently used to show you ads, and adds: “If this changes, we will clearly communicate it to you.” ([Gemini Apps Privacy Hub](https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/13594961))\n\nGoogle’s [Drive privacy page](https://support.google.com/drive/answer/10375054), meanwhile, still says Drive “does not use your information for advertising purposes.”\n\nTry zero-knowledge encryption for yourself. Create a free MEGA account and get 20 GB of storage with zero-knowledge encryption.\n\n## What is Personal Intelligence, and does it affect you?\n\nPersonal Intelligence is Google’s name for **letting its AI read your other Google apps**, so answers in Search and Gemini are tailored to you. You have to opt in, and it’s limited to people aged 18 and over. If you’ve never connected your apps (or tapped “Connect” on a setup prompt without reading it), the ads exception doesn’t apply to you. Files and photos you upload directly to AI Mode follow separate rules, and Google says they can be used to improve its services, with help from human reviewers, depending on your settings.\n\nThere are two ways in:\n\n- Google Search, through AI Mode and Ask Maps, can connect Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Photos. Do it once and Google says “all Search services will be permitted to access” them: Search, Discover, Maps, Shopping, Flights, Hotels, Translate and News.\n- Gemini can connect Google Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Keep and more), Google Photos, YouTube, Google Wallet and Google Search services.\n\nAccess also grows over time. In Gemini’s words, “if new data is added to these apps in the future, Gemini will have access to that data,” so next year’s emails and photos are included without another prompt.\n\n## Can advertisers see your emails or photos?\n\nNo. Google says advertisers won’t get access to your Gmail inbox or Google Photos, and its policy still bars personalised ads based on sensitive categories such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health.\n\nThat protects less than it sounds. Advertisers don’t buy your photos; they pay Google to reach people who fit a profile, and building the profile is Google’s job. Your files never leave Google’s servers, yet what Google concludes from them can still decide which ads follow you around.\n\nSensitive information doesn’t stay out of the system either. Gemini’s help page warns that connected data “may relate to topics that you find sensitive, like race, religion and health, or confidential info.” The ad rules limit how Google targets you, but Gemini can still read that material.\n\n## Is your data also training Google’s AI?\n\nIt can be, and the rules differ between Search and Gemini. For Search, the help page says: “If you choose to connect your content apps to Search services, we may use that data to improve Google services for everyone, including by training generative AI models.” In Gemini, training depends on a setting called Keep Activity. With it on, Google uses your activity to improve its services, “including training generative AI models”. With it off, future chats “won’t be used to train our AI models, unless you choose to send Google feedback.”\n\nAccording to Google, its models learn from summaries, excerpts and inferences, not your whole inbox or photo library. The same page then qualifies that: “In some cases, for example, where the email or file is brief or particularly relevant to respond to the inquiry, the summary may just be the email or file.”\n\n**Some of it is read by people as well.** A subset of this data goes to human reviewers, including outside service providers, and Google’s advice to Search users is: “Please don’t connect your Google content apps if they contain personal or confidential information that you wouldn’t want a reviewer to see.” For most people, that would rule out their entire inbox. Photos get one extra protection: Google says reviewers don’t view the media in your library “except for cases of abuse and harm or when you submit feedback”. They can still see summaries, inferences and generated media based on it. In Gemini, turning off Keep Activity stops future chats from being reviewed to improve Google’s services.\n\n**Disconnecting an app also doesn’t erase what Google has already saved.** “Disconnecting a connected Google content app or deleting any data in that app doesn’t delete any data from your Search Services History,” the page says, and that history “can still be used for product improvement, including training generative AI models.” Gemini treats Gemini Apps activity the same way. If you want to limit AI training elsewhere, see [how to opt out of AI training](https://blog.mega.io/how-to-opt-out-of-ai-training) on other major platforms.\n\n## How do you switch it off?\n\nYou need to disconnect your apps from both Search and Gemini, then delete the history each one has already saved. Google says it’s updating these settings, so the labels you see may differ slightly.\n\n1. In your Google Account, go to Data & privacy, then Personalization settings, then Manage Personalized Recommendations in Search Services.\n2. Under Additional Personal Intelligence, open Connected Content Apps and disconnect Google Workspace and Google Photos. To turn the feature off completely, switch off Personalized Recommendations on the same page.\n3. In Gemini, open your Connected Apps settings and disconnect Google Workspace, Google Photos and anything else you don’t want it reading.\n4. In Gemini Apps Activity, turn off Keep Activity if you don’t want future Gemini chats used to train Google’s AI. Google notes that Workspace connections become unavailable while it’s off.\n5. At activity.google.com, delete your Search Services History and your Gemini Apps activity. Disconnecting apps leaves both untouched. Deleting them won’t remove chats already sent for human review, which Google says are kept, disconnected from your account, for up to three years.\n6. In My Ad Center, limit how your activity is used for ads across Google.\n\n## Why a privacy promise isn’t privacy\n\nNobody at Google had to break into anything. A sentence in a policy changed, a note went onto a nine-year-old blog post, and data that was off-limits for ads became usable, as long as you’d switched on a feature sold as a smarter search. Privacy that rests on a policy lasts as long as the policy does.\n\nFor your Google Photos privacy, what matters most is whether your storage provider can read your files at all. Google can, so a policy edit is enough to change what happens to them.\n\n|  | Google Drive and Google Photos | MEGA Cloud | \n|---|---|---|\n| Encryption | In transit and at rest, keys held by Google¹ | Zero-knowledge (end-to-end). Every file has its own key, protected by keys only your password unlocks | \n| End-to-end for personal accounts | No. Google’s client-side encryption is only on [selected Workspace business and education editions](https://knowledge.workspace.google.com/admin/security/about-client-side-encryption) | Yes, on every account by default | \n| Can the provider read your files? | Yes. Drive processes content for search and malware checks; Gemini can draw inferences from Photos | No. Without the keys, files are unreadable to anyone, MEGA included | \n| What sets the limits on use | Google’s privacy policy and your settings | Encryption | \n| Forgotten password | Google can reset it | MEGA can’t recover your files without your password or recovery key | \n\n*¹ Google’s Drive privacy page and the Google Photos Safety Center both describe encryption in transit and at rest. Google’s client-side encryption page describes its end-to-end option as one “Google servers and third parties can’t decrypt”, unlike the default.*\n\nMEGA Cloud uses [zero-knowledge encryption](https://blog.mega.io/what-is-zero-knowledge-end-to-end-encryption): your files are encrypted with keys that only you, and anyone you share with, hold. For anyone else, “including MEGA, the data would appear as gibberish,” as [MEGA’s security page](https://mega.io/security) explains. A file nobody else can read can’t be summarised, excerpted or turned into an inference about you.\n\nIf Personal Intelligence is useful to you, you don’t have to give it up. Keep it for low-stakes things, and move anything you wouldn’t want a stranger reviewing (ID scans, contracts, family photos) to storage where only you hold the key. To weigh your options, compare [private alternatives to Google Drive](https://blog.mega.io/cloud-storage-alternatives), see [cloud storage picks for photographers](https://blog.mega.io/best-cloud-storage-for-photographers), or read the guide to [leaving Google’s cloud](https://blog.mega.io/best-private-cloud-storage-when-you-de-google).\n\nDon’t let Google read your files. Create a free MEGA account and get 20 GB of storage with zero-knowledge encryption.\n\n## Frequently asked questions\n\n### Does Google use my photos for ads?\n\nOnly if you connect Google Photos to a Google service that supports personalised ads, such as Personal Intelligence in Search. Google says ads won’t be based directly on your photo library, but summaries, excerpts and inferences drawn from it may be used, depending on your settings. Gemini says its chats aren’t currently used for ads.\n\n### Is Google Photos private?\n\nThey aren’t private from Google, which processes them to run features like search. If you connect Photos to Gemini, Google can also infer your relationships and where you’ve been, including by matching your face to places and times.\n\n### Does Google Drive scan my files?\n\nYes, for some purposes. Google says Drive processes your content for spam filtering, malware detection and search, and its Drive privacy page says content isn’t used for ads. The updated privacy policy names Drive among services whose data can shape ads if you connect it to other Google services.\n\n### Is Personal Intelligence on by default?\n\nNo. You have to connect your apps yourself, and the feature is limited to users aged 18 and over in supported countries. Setup prompts in AI Mode and Gemini make connecting easy, so check Connected Content Apps in your Google Account and Connected Apps in Gemini if you’re unsure.\n\n### Does disconnecting my apps delete my data?\n\nNo. Google says disconnecting an app doesn’t delete data already saved to your Search Services History or Gemini Apps activity, and Google says Search Services History can still be used to improve its services, including AI training. Delete it separately at activity.google.com after you disconnect.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-can-now-use-your-gmail-drive-and-google-photos-to-target-ads", "canonical_source": "https://blog.mega.io/google-gmail-photos-personalized-ads", "published_at": "2026-10-27 03:16:45+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-27 03:41:51.579546+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "generative-ai", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Google", "Gmail", "Google Drive", "Google Photos", "Gemini", "Personal Intelligence", "Android Authority", "Diane Greene"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-can-now-use-your-gmail-drive-and-google-photos-to-target-ads", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-can-now-use-your-gmail-drive-and-google-photos-to-target-ads.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-can-now-use-your-gmail-drive-and-google-photos-to-target-ads.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-can-now-use-your-gmail-drive-and-google-photos-to-target-ads.jsonld"}}