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[ARTICLE · art-33214] src=discuss.privacyguides.net ↗ pub= topic=ai-policy verified=true sentiment=· neutral

Is Google Photos THAT bad for privacy?

A user on Privacy Guides forum asks whether Google Photos poses a privacy risk, noting that Google claims not to use stored photos for ads or AI training without permission, but lacks zero-access encryption, leaving future policy changes possible.

read1 min views1 publishedJun 18, 2026

Cobson 1 I don’t have that much money right now so I’m trying to cancel unnecessary subscriptions and I have an old Pixel XL with unlimited Google Photos storage that I could use.

afaik, Google doesn’t use your photos for AI training (unless you give them permission to do so) and aren’t used for any sort of ad targeting.

I kinda expect the type of answers that I’ll get but I had to ask anyways, just in case. Most threads I found talking about this (on Reddit mainly) were pretty old, so maybe the situation had changed over the years.

We don’t sell your personal information to anyone or use the content you store in Photos for ads purposes.

A quick search finds this page which claims they don’t use it for ads, but no statement on AI training.

Even if this is true (and not just “technically true”), there’s nothing that stops them from using your photos for those purposes in the future since it’s not zero-access encrypted.

It’s ultimately up to you if you want to take that risk.

It depends on your threat model.

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