AI Chatbots spy on you, collecting, analysing, and storing personal data, and many share that data with third parties.
Before you get your knickers in a knot, know that almost any app or operating system collects personal data – data harvesting. The problem stems from people’s indiscriminate use of so-called free apps, where, in return, if the service is free, the service is you.
Operating systems are no different. Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS are data harvesters extraordinaire. These combine with AI chatbots to collect information on what you do, where you go, what you search for, and much more.
What do AI Chabots collect?
Remember that to help you, AI needs to know a lot about you – well, that’s the excuse anyway. According to Surfshark, the main AI Chatbots:
- 90% use device identifiers, such as IP addresses, physical address reverse lookups, device details, and more.
- 90% access Usage data
- 80% need to know you via contact info, logins, and using social media logins
- 70% request access to user content – documents and downloads.
- 40% specifically mention needing the location, but in any case, they can obtain that information from the contact info.
- 30% request access to browser search history
- 30% request on-line purchase history
- 30% link user or device data collected from the app with third-party data for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes or sharing it with a data broker.
- 20% request contacts access – you should never give this!
At this point, none of the top ten request access to sensitive data, such as passwords or health information.
If you use AI Chatbots, please seriously limit app permissions.
Google Gemini takes the crown for wanting to know more
Google Gemini seeks out 22 pieces of data, but Android already collects about half of these. If you include Chrome and other host systems, such as iPhone and MacOS, that is a lot of data, and you should tie down its permissions.
By comparison, Microsoft Copilot seeks out 12 pieces of data, as well as information gleaned from Edge and other browsers and operating systems, including macOS, Android, and iOS.
Siri is not mentioned (yet), as Apple AI has a long way to go to catch up with the leading AI chatbots.
CyberShack’s view: AI chatbots spy on you, as do most apps and operating systems
It begs the question of why use AI chatbots unless you have a real need. Then, it is clear that using them on a desktop for research is the least obtrusive way, as you can lock down permissions.
But there is a deeper issue: Your Chat history is retained pretty well forever. Recently, a DeepSeek (China) hack lost millions of chat histories.
That information is gold to hackers. So much so that the dark web is developing its own AI Large Language Module called DarkBERT is the most malicious dark web AI. It’s coming after you specifically to gather more information about you.
Privacy is the greatest threat facing humanity.
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