- AI tools are increasingly requesting broad access to personal data.
- Even simple tasks may trigger invasive permissions like email, contacts, or calendar.
- These permissions can expose years of private information to companies and human reviewers.
- Experts say the risks far outweigh the convenience offered by most AI apps.
Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept. It’s in your phone, your browser, your home devices, and even the drive-through speaker.
While AI tools promise speed, convenience, and smarter decision-making, they increasingly demand something much more personal in return: access to your data. And that trade-off comes with serious privacy and security concerns.
AI Apps Are Asking for Too Much
The normalization of AI in everyday applications has led to a troubling trend. Many AI tools now request sweeping permissions to access your emails, calendars, contacts, and even your real-time conversations. These requests often go far beyond what’s necessary for the app to function.
One striking example is Perplexity’s new AI-powered browser, Comet. Promoted as a smart tool for summarizing emails, managing events, and finding answers faster, Comet asks users for extensive access to their Google accounts.
That includes permission to read, write, and send emails, view and modify calendar events, download contacts, and access employee directories.
Even though Perplexity claims this information is stored locally on your device, users are still authorizing the company to use that data to improve its models for others, essentially making your personal data part of their product development pipeline.
The Flashlight App Problem, Rebranded
This situation echoes past concerns when basic apps like flashlights or calculators on app stores requested access to photos or location data. Back then, it was a clear red flag. Today, AI apps are following similar tactics, but under the guise of productivity and convenience.
Apps that transcribe meetings or automate booking tasks often request real-time access to your microphone, calendar, location, and messages. What they really need is far less than what they ask for. But with enough data, companies can enhance their models—and their profits.
Even Meta has been exploring new boundaries, including access to photos stored on a user’s phone that haven’t been uploaded to any platform yet. The trend is clear: AI wants everything it can get.
Autonomy with a Side of Risk
Allowing AI agents to perform tasks on your behalf might sound like a time-saver. But it comes with real dangers. As Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal, recently noted, AI assistants essentially ask to “put your brain in a jar.”
To book a dinner, for example, AI might request your saved passwords, credit card info, browsing history, calendar entries, and access to contacts, all under the justification of making things easier.
The convenience masks the truth: when you grant these permissions, you’re not just handing over access to your data in the moment, you’re giving away a snapshot of your digital life, potentially spanning years. And when AI systems fail, which they often do, human reviewers at these companies may review your interactions to identify the issue.
Ask: Is the Trade-Off Worth It?
In reality, AI tools are still imperfect. They make mistakes, hallucinate facts, and require constant human oversight. So giving them access to sensitive personal information should raise immediate red flags.
You are not just trusting technology, but the companies building and profiting from it. These organizations are often vague about how your data is used, stored, or secured. When privacy is compromised, the consequences can be difficult, or impossible, to reverse.
Before you approve the next permission prompt from an AI tool, pause and ask: Is this really necessary? Is the task it’s helping with worth the access I’m granting?
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