Slack trains machine learning models based on your messages, files, and other content without your explicit permission. This training is opt-out. That means your personal data will be leaked by default. Even worse, you have to email her Slack admin at your organization (HR, IT, etc.) and ask them to ask the company to deactivate her from Slack. (You can't do it yourself.) Welcome to the dark side of the new AI training data gold rush.
Corey Quinn, an executive at DuckBill Group, noticed this policy in Slack's privacy principles blurb and posted about it on X (via PCMag). This section says (with emphasis on us): Developing AI/ML modelsour system Analyze customer data (for example messages, content, files) Also sent to Slack Other information (Including Usage Information) As defined in our Privacy Policy and Customer Agreement. ”
The opt-out process requires you to do everything you can to protect your data. According to the privacy notice, “To opt out, contact the Customer Experience Team (Feedback@ Please contact slack.com). . ” We will process your request and respond once your opt-out is complete. ”
Sorry, what are you doing with Slack, users' DMs, messages, files, etc? I'm sure I'm not reading this correctly. pic.twitter.com/6ORZNS2RxC
— Corey Quinn (@QuinnyPig) May 16, 2024
The company responded to Quinn's message about X with the following: “To be clear, Slack has platform-level machine learning models for things like channel and emoji recommendations and search results. And yes, customers can use their own data from training those (non-generated) ML models. can be excluded.”
It's unclear when the Salesforce company snuck this information into its terms and conditions. It is misleading at best to say that customers can opt out when “customers” does not include employees working within your organization. They should ask the person who manages her access to Slack at the company to do it. And I hope they oblige.
Inconsistencies in Slack's privacy policies add to the confusion. One section states, “When you develop an Al/ML model or analyze customer data, Slack does not have access to the underlying content. We have implemented various technical measures to prevent this from happening. However, machine learning model training policies seem to contradict this statement and leave a lot of room for confusion.
Additionally, Slack's webpage promoting its premium generative AI tools says: Your data is your data. Not used for training Slack AI. Everything runs on Slack's secure infrastructure and meets the same compliance standards as Slack itself. ”
In this case, the company is talking about a premium generative AI tool that is separate from the machine learning models it is training without explicit permission. however, pc mug Pointed out that implying that all data is safe from AI training is a highly misleading statement when it is clear that the company chooses which AI models to target in that statement. doing.
Engadget attempted to contact Slack through multiple channels, but did not receive a response at the time of publication. We will update this story if we receive a response.
