What happened
Google updated its privacy settings in June to allow the company to save and use media—images, files, audio, and video recordings—uploaded to Google Search services and related products (Maps, Shopping, Flights, Hotels, Translate, News) to train its AI models. Users are opted in by default unless they manually disable the "Save Media" setting.
Why it matters
Google now collects training data not just from public web scraping but directly from user-created content uploaded through its services. The company confirmed this use explicitly, stating saved media is "used to develop and improve Google services and technologies, including AI models and safety measures." This reflects a broader industry shift—Meta is doing the same with user images and AI-glasses footage—and means everyday interactions (voice searches, Google Lens photos, Translate practice sessions) now feed AI training unless you intervene.
What to watch
You can disable media saving on the Search Services History page by unchecking the "Save Media" box separately from search history, and configure auto-deletion intervals (3, 18, or 36 months). Critically, this new setting is separate from the older Web & App Activity setting, so changing one no longer affects the other—a change that may have caught users who thought they'd already opted out.
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Google's update, announced via customer email in June, introduces two new privacy settings (Search Services History and Personalized Recommendations) that ostensibly give users more control over their data. However, the new "Save Media" feature defaults to enabled, meaning users who do not actively opt out will have their uploaded media—photos from Google Lens, voice recordings from search, audio from Translate—retained for AI training. This represents a shift in how tech companies source training data: instead of relying solely on web scraping, Google and peers like Meta are now harvesting data from user-generated content created within their own services.
The company's help documentation and customer emails make clear that this media is retained specifically for developing and improving AI models, not merely for temporary product function. Critically, Google separated this new media setting from the older Web & App Activity control, creating a risk that users who believed they had already opted out of data collection via that channel will unknowingly remain enrolled in media training. This structural change—placing a new default-on setting outside the historical privacy framework—may mean many users do not realize the scope of data now being collected for AI purposes.
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