Using Google’s products and services has always been fundamentally precarious – doing so gives the world’s largest advertising company a lot of juicy personal data. Google has long said that it does not use sensitive data from products such as Gmail, Drive, and Photos for ad personalization, but a change in the company’s privacy policy appears to dismantle this firewall.
On October 16, Google issued an update to its data protection policy, seen by the Android Authority. The ad personalization section uses a clear limit on including data from different apps. “We will not show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail or photos,” the document said. Now Google has updated it with the following language.
Updated language if your sensitive data can inform ads.
Credit: Google
Updated language if your sensitive data can inform ads.
Credit: Google
This equivocation opens the door to using data from apps like Gmail and photos in ads when shared with other Google services, and it just so happens that Google has a mechanism to do that, with Personal Intelligence. The company released Personal Intelligence in early 2026, which allows users to transfer data from various apps to Google AI products. The idea is that the added context of your existing data will lead to better AI responses, but it’s also proving to be a privacy minefield.
Personal Intelligence connects your data with the Gemini app but also with features such as AI mode search. While the Gemini app currently has no ads, you may see sponsored content and AI search tools. Google’s changes to the data protection policy seem to acknowledge that data shared with the AI search via personal intelligence can therefore contribute to the personalization of the ad.
According to Google, this statement still does not mean that ads are “directly” based on your personal data. Here is the company’s full statement:
“Connecting your apps is entirely opt-in. Ads will continue to be relevant to things like your request, the context of the response, and your interests. Ads will not be based directly on your Gmail inbox or photo library, and as always, sensitive information will not be used to personalize ads.
Google’s statement is basically a roundabout way of confirming that workspace and photos data can inform ads. If you interact with AI mode while Personal Intelligence is enabled, there’s a chance that summaries and insights from your data will inform the responses you receive. Since the same data is used for ad targeting, it is correct to say that your personal data is an element of ad targeting and AI search. The privacy policy now makes this clear.