TCAI Guide: How to stop your images and data from being used to train AI
Amazon’s recent change in its Alexa policy has sparked a renewed interest in how to stop your data from being used to train AI.
A recap of the Amazon news, via BGR:
Amazon is killing a feature that lets users of some Echo devices stop Alexa from sending voice recordings to the cloud. As shared on Reddit, Amazon sent out emails to users of affected Echo smart speakers to let them know that the “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” feature will no longer be available starting on March 28, 2025.
That means Amazon has decided it’s going to use your voice to train its AI systems whether you like it or not.
Here’s the troubling reality: If you’ve published text, photos, illustrations, or any other organic content on the internet, it’s likely that material has been scraped into a dataset and used to train one or more of the LLMs (large language AI models) operating today.
In recent months, most digital applications and social media platforms have changed their terms of service to allow the companies to use your data, images, and even voice to train their AI models. You’re automatically opted-in to this, without your consent.
Most companies do allow consumers to opt out of this use, however. The one exception, aside from Amazon, is Meta, which allows EU consumers to opt out (because EU law requires it) but does not let American consumers opt out of Meta’s use of your Facebook and Instagram posts to train its AI models.
Here are step-by-step instructions to opt out of AI training. We will continue to update this list as more information becomes available.
Opting out of major platforms and products
LinkedIn is currently using the employment data you’re posting to train AI models.
To stop LinkedIn from training its AI models on your personal and employment data, log into your LinkedIn account.
Click on your headshot on the upper toolbar, where it says “Me.” Select “Settings & Privacy.”
Under Settings, select Data privacy.
Under “How LinkedIn uses your data,” select “Data for Generative AI Improvement.” Move the slider bar to the Off position.
Microsoft 365:
Excel, Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint
Microsoft 365 contains the company’s big four applications: Word, Excel, Outlook, and Powerpoint.
Microsoft has long been scraping MS 365 documents to train its AI models. Everyone using MS 365 tools (Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint) is automatically opted-in unless they take steps to opt-out. Now that the company has embedded its AI Copilot into all MS 365 products, Microsoft is actively training its AI systems on your work even as you’re typing.
To keep your work in any Microsoft product truly private, you’ll need to opt out of both the MS “connected experiences” portal and separately disable Copilot. It’s not super complicated.
To opt out from a Windows computer:
Open Word or any other MS 365 application.
Go to File—>Options—>Trust Center (left panel)—>Trust Center Settings (button)—>Privacy Options (left panel)—>Privacy Settings (button), then uncheck “Turn on optional connected experiences".
Once you confirm by clicking OK, close all MS 365 applications (Word, Excel, Outlook, et al) and reopen them for the changed setting to take effect.
To opt out from a Mac:
Open Word or any MS 365 application.
Go to Word —>Preferences—>Privacy —>Connected Experiences—>Manage Connected Experiences (button) —> uncheck “Turn on experiences that analyze your content." Then click the OK button at bottom right.
AI copilot (microsoft)
Now that Microsoft has embedded its AI Copilot system into all MS 365 applications, you will be feeding Microsoft your data as you type it—unless you disable Copilot. We have a step-by-step guide here:
ChatGPT and dall-e
When you interact with ChatGPT, OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot, the company is using your prompts to train and improve its own AI models.
Here’s how to stop ChatGPT and DALL-E, which are both OpenAI products, from using your data and input from training its own models, while still continuing to use the chatbot.
Web controls (as a logged in user):
To disable model training, navigate to your profile icon on the bottom-left of the page, select Settings > Data Controls, and disable “Improve the model for everyone." While this is disabled, new conversations won’t be used to train OpenAI’s models.
Web controls (as a logged out user):
To disable model training, navigate to the ? icon on the bottom-right of the page, select
Settings > Data Controls, and disable "Improve the model for everyone."
iOS app:
Tap the three dots on the top right corner of the screen > Settings > Data Controls > toggle off “Improve the model for everyone.”
Android app:
Open the menu through the three horizontal lines in the top left corner of your screen, select Settings > Data Controls, and toggle off “Improve the model for everyone.”
google gemini
For users of Google’s chatbot, Gemini, conversations may sometimes be selected for human review to improve the AI model.
How to opt out: Open up Gemini in your browser, click on Activity, and select the Turn Off drop-down menu. Then urn off the Gemini Apps Activity, or opt out as well as delete your conversation data.
While this does mean in most cases that future chats won’t be seen for human review, already selected data is not erased through this process. According to Google’s privacy hub for Gemini, these chats may stick around for three years.
perplexity
Perplexity is a startup that uses AI to help you search the web and find answers to questions.
As a Perplexity user, you are automatically opted in to having your interactions and data used to train Perplexity’s AI models.
Turn this off by clicking on your account name, scrolling down to the Account section, and turning off the AI Data Retention toggle.
X and grok
Kate O'Flaherty wrote a great piece for WIRED about Grok AI and protecting your privacy on X, the platform where the chatbot operates.
If you still have an X account, it’s possible to opt out of your data being used to train Grok by going to the “Settings and privacy” section, then select “Privacy and safety.”
Open the Grok tab, then deselect your data sharing option.
Adobe creative cloud
Adobe has changed its terms of service to grant the company the right to use your artwork to train their AI models. This means any content you create on their platforms (Illustrator, Photoshop, et al) could be used to train generative AI models that could devalue or replace your work.
Hat-tip to Nashville-based artist Ginny St. Lawrence, who posted this information on her blog.
Take these steps to disable the AI-related features that analyze your work and use it to train Adobe’s current and future AI systems:
Go to the Adobe Account Privacy Settings page.
Locate the "Content analysis" setting and turn it off.
This will prevent Adobe from using your artwork to train their AI models.
It's important to note that this option is not available for Adobe Stock contributors, as they have a separate agreement with the company. Additionally, Photoshop users may need to turn off an additional feature within the application itself.
Here’s how to opt out and stop Pinterest from using your photos and data to train its proprietary AI models.
Select your profile (click on your icon in the upper right corner)
Select View profile —> Edit profile —> Privacy and data
Scroll down to “GenAI” and uncheck the box.
Select “Save” at the bottom right.
More information available here:
Meta allows EU consumers to opt out of Facebook data collection, but does not offer similar opt-out capabilities to U.S. consumers. That’s because there is no law compelling Meta to do so in the United States.
Note: Meta has extended the following Facebook opt-out option to European users only, as it it compelled to do so by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Meta does not offer an opt-out option for AI scraping to consumers in the United States and Australia, which have no similar legal requirements.
Log in to your Facebook account. Go to “Settings and Privacy,” select Privacy Center, and then find “How Meta uses information for generative AI models and features.” Scroll down and click “Right to Object.”
Complete the form with your personal details. You’ll be asked to explain why you want to opt-out. A simple statement asserting your right to object under GDPR should suffice. Be sure to confirm your email address.
Wait for confirmation. After submitting the form, you’ll receive an email and a notification on Facebook confirming whether your request has been successful.
Note: As with Facebook this opt-out option is available to EU consumers only.
Log in to Instagram and go to your profile. Tap the three lines in the top-right corner and select “Settings and Privacy.”
Scroll down to “More Info and Support” and select About, then select “Privacy Policy.” At the top of the page, you’ll find the link labeled “Learn more about your right to object.” Select that link.
Submit the form as you would for Facebook, and you’ll receive a notification and email confirmation once your request is processed.
squarespace
The website-building platform has built in a toggle to stop AI crawlers from scraping websites it hosts.
It works by updating your website’s robots.txt file to tell AI companies the content is off limits. To block the AI bots, open Settings within your account, find Crawlers, and select “Block known artificial intelligence crawlers.”
This should work for the following crawlers: Anthropic AI, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, Claude-Web, cohere-ai, FacebookBot, Google Extended, GPTBot and ChatGPT-User, and PerplexityBot.
wordpress
WordPress has a prevent third-party sharing option.
To turn this on, visit your website’s dashboard, click on Settings, General, and then through to Privacy. Select the Prevent third-party sharing box.
substack
Substack has an option to apply the robots.txt opt-out.
Within the Settings page, go to the Publication section and turn on the toggle to Block AI training.
More resources
There are a number of resources to consult on the strategies to keep your organic content from being used to train AI models. They include:
WIRED: How to Stop Your Data From Being Used to Train AI
Spawning: Tools for Rights Holders
Stanford / Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI): How Do We Protect Our Personal Information?
There are more controversial tools that effectively turn data into “poison” when AI models try to use it. The most well-known are Glaze and Nightshade, created by Ben Zhao and the SAND Lab at the University of Chicago. For more on that:
MIT Technology Review: Nightshade Lets Artists Fight Back
