Adobe denies claims about its AI secretly scanning documents

Adobe has recently denied all the allegations that claimed its in-app AI tools are secretly scanning user documents. In a statement issued to Windows Latest, Adobe confirmed that the generative AI tool doesn’t scan documents unless they engage with the AI assistant and manually turn on the feature. 

The controversy sparked after security reporter Brian Krebs posted a screenshot of an email sent by Adobe to some of its users. A part of the email mentions that AI Assistant in the Acrobat and Acrobat Reader app uses AI technology to understand the user’s query and answers based on the content in the opened PDF. 

That’s not all, a help page’s documentation shared by Adobe on its official website points in the same direction. A part of the documentation with the heading ‘Turn off generative AI features’ mentions that the generative AI features in the alleged apps (Acrobat and Acrobat Reader) are turned on by default. However, there’s a mention of the user’s ability to disable the features if they wish to. 

The controversy gained further spark on social platforms like Reddit where users posted the screen grab shared by Brian. They expressed their concern about the same and talked about how it could affect their privacy and security. 

Adobe says its AI tool doesn’t scan your documents by default

That said, Adobe was quick enough to address the confusion and responded to Windows Latest when they inquired about the matter. The company says that the alleged apps have AI tools turned on by default. But, that doesn’t mean it will scan all your documents. The AI tool within its apps only scans documents when a user agrees to the terms and engages with the AI to summarize them.  

Deepak Bharadwaj, the VP of Adobe’s Product Management for Document Cloud addressed the matter in an email to Windows Latest. He mentioned that Adobe designed its AI tools to respect user’s privacy. And, it doesn’t in any case scan the documents unless a user consents.