A recent viral social media post has sparked widespread concern among Gmail users in the UK and beyond, alleging that Google is secretly using the contents of private emails to train its Gemini artificial intelligence.
The Viral Claim and Google's Smart Features
On November 19, 2025, electronics design engineer Dave Jones, who runs the world's largest engineering blog, posted a stark warning on X (formerly Twitter). He claimed that Gmail users had been automatically opted in to a setting allowing Google to access all private messages and attachments to train its AI models.
Jones identified the function as part of Gmail's 'Smart Features and Personalisation'. These AI-powered tools, which have been available for years, provide conveniences like automatically sorting emails into categories (such as 'Promotional' or 'Social'), suggesting quick replies, creating calendar events from flight confirmations, and summarising shopping orders.
His central warning was clear: 'You have to manually turn off Smart Features in the Settings menu in TWO locations.'
How to Disable the Features and What You Lose
To adjust these settings on the web version of Gmail, users must navigate to Settings, then find the 'Smart Features and Personalisation' section. Here, a toggle can be switched off. Google's accompanying text states: 'When you turn this setting on, you agree to let Gmail, Chat and Meet use your content and activity in these products to provide smart features and personalise your experience.'
As Jones noted, a secondary control exists under 'Google Workspace smart features'. Disabling this also turns off the 'Ask Gemini' tool, which can summarise content and personalise search results. On mobile devices, the path is typically via the inbox menu settings, selecting 'Data Privacy'.
However, opting out comes with significant trade-offs. Users will lose the automated email filtering, smart reply suggestions, and the integrated 'Ask Gemini' assistant. Crucially, spell check, grammar suggestions, and autocorrect are also tied to this setting, meaning turning it off reverts Gmail to a more basic functionality.
Google's Response and the Legal Context
When approached for comment by Metro.co.uk on January 8, 2026, a spokesperson for Google's parent company, Alphabet, strongly refuted the viral claims. The spokesperson stated: 'These reports are misleading – we have not changed anyone's settings, Gmail Smart Features have existed for many years, and we do not use your Gmail content for training our Gemini AI model.'
They added that the company is 'always transparent and clear if we make changes to our terms of service and policies.' Google's terms of service do not grant the company ownership of user email content.
Despite this assurance, the controversy has legal traction. A lawsuit filed against Google in November 2025 by plaintiff Thomas Thele alleges the tech giant 'spies on users by default'. The complaint claims that the Gemini AI programme, launched the previous month, was enabled across popular services without explicit user consent, tracking personal communications in violation of privacy laws.
The situation leaves UK users weighing the benefits of convenient, AI-assisted email management against ongoing concerns about data privacy and how their personal information is utilised by major technology firms.
