Got yourself an AI girlfriend? Now use these tips to protect yourself

If you are worried about artificial intelligence or AI taking away your jobs, think again. Jobs aren’t the only thing you need to worry about. AI is also stealing your future prospects. For the unversed, a lot of netizens are breaking the norm and turning to AI for love and companionship. While there is an upside to this, like no remembering every anniversary or planning romantic dates, there is a major downside to this trend as well, that is, privacy.

Reports have already detailed how AI girlfriends have little regard for their partner’s privacy and how they steal users’ data, including their deepest darkest secrets, only to sell to data brokers for targeted advertising. Reports have also detailed how AI girlfriends track users or their partners, often more than the real-life girlfriend, only to share that with third parties for advertising. And if that wasn’t enough, there is no such thing as ‘spousal privilege’ with AI girlfriend. Simply put, your real-life girlfriend may not have ratted you out before the government or law-enforcement agencies, but your AI girlfriend surely will — that too without a court order. You can read all about the perils of having an AI girlfriend here.

Now that we have established that AI girlfriends aren’t exactly the best for you, the only question that matters is — how can you protect yourself and your privacy from them? So, here are a few tips that will help you protect yourself from your virtual girlfriend:

How to protect yourself from your AI girlfriend?

— Don’t reveal any sensitive information about yourself while you chatting or conversing with your AI partner.

— Request the company behind your AI girlfriend to delete your data when you stop using the app. As Mozilla cautioned in its blog post, simply deleting an app from a device doesn’t erase a user’s personal data or close their account.

— Don’t give consent for having your geolocation getting tracked by the app. Keey your location access settings to either ‘Never’ or ‘While Using the App’.

— Don’t share your sensitive data or your financial data in the app.

— Don’t give access to your photos and video or camera to your AI girlfriend.

— Don’t connect to any third-party app or platform via the app. This will give access to the data from that platform to your AI girlfriend, which we know isn’t exactly good.

— Use a strong password for logging into the AI girlfriend app. You can use tools such as 1Password or KeePass.

— Don’t use social media plug-ins for the AI girlfriend app.

— Mozilla says that users can use their device’s privacy controls to limit access to their personal information via the AI girlfriend app.

— Update your app regularly.

— Limit ad tracking via your device.

— Most importantly, when signing up for the AI girlfriend, do not agree to tracking of your data.