Dropbox Will Share Your Personal Files with OpenAI Unless You Do This

Dec 13, 2023 @ 3:46 pm

Dropbox Logo Dropbox has integrated some AI tools, and the engine backing that is OpenAI. So it’s not entirely surprising that if you use the AI tools, some of your data is going to end up on OpenAI’s servers.

For a month.

According to Dropbox’s FAQ, OpenAI may retain your data for up to 30 days. I don’t know about you, but the prospect of my Dropbox content being used to train AI models leaves me feeling a bit queasy.

But it’s not just if you use AI features. It’s if you share files with anyone using AI features.

Dropbox’s behavior on this is very disappointing:

The “third-party AI” feature is turned on by default even though you never consented to this.
The description is deceptively phrased: “We only use technology partners we have vetted. Your data is never used to train their internal models”. OK, so it’s used to train their external models, right? Otherwise why make that distinction?

You can turn this off:

Go to dropbox.com and login
Click your profile pic in the upper right
Select Settings in the drop down
Click the Third Party AI section
Turn the button to off

Dropbox AI Setting

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raindog308

Dread Lord of LowEnd Content at LowEndBox

I'm raindog308, techno polymath and long-time LowEndTalk community Administrator. My technical interests include all things Unix, perl, python, golang, shell scripting, vintage operating systems such as MVS, and relational database systems such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.

I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308