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Alphabet to Roll out Image Generation of People on Gemini after Pause

A large Google logo is seen at Google's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California on August 13, 2024. (AFP)
A large Google logo is seen at Google's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California on August 13, 2024. (AFP)
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Alphabet to Roll out Image Generation of People on Gemini after Pause

A large Google logo is seen at Google's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California on August 13, 2024. (AFP)
A large Google logo is seen at Google's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California on August 13, 2024. (AFP)

Alphabet's Google said on Wednesday it has updated Gemini's AI image-creation model and would roll out the generation of visuals of people in the coming days, after months-long pause of the capability.

In February, Google had paused its AI tool that creates images of people, following inaccuracies in some historical depictions generated by the model.

The issues, where the AI model returned historical images which were sometimes inaccurate, drew flak from users.

The company said it has worked to improve the product, adhere to "product principles" and simulated situations to find weaknesses.

The feature will be made available first to paid users of the Gemini AI chatbot, starting in English and later roll out the model to bring more users and languages.

Google said it has improved the Imagen 3 model to create better images of people, but it would not generate images of specific people, children or graphic content.

OpenAI's Dall-E, Microsoft's CoPilot and recently xAI's Grok are among other AI chatbots that can now generate images.

The search engine giant also said over the coming days, subscribers to Gemini Advanced, Business and Enterprise would have access to chatting with "Gems" or chatbots customized for specific purposes.

Users can write specific instructions for particular purposes and create a Gem, saving them time from rewriting prompts for repetitive use cases.

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Dutch Watchdog Fines Uber $324 Million for Alleged Inadequate Protection of Drivers’ Data 

An Uber sign is displayed at the company's headquarters in San Francisco, Sept. 12, 2022. (AP)
An Uber sign is displayed at the company's headquarters in San Francisco, Sept. 12, 2022. (AP)
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Dutch Watchdog Fines Uber $324 Million for Alleged Inadequate Protection of Drivers’ Data 

An Uber sign is displayed at the company's headquarters in San Francisco, Sept. 12, 2022. (AP)
An Uber sign is displayed at the company's headquarters in San Francisco, Sept. 12, 2022. (AP)

The Dutch data protection watchdog slapped a 290 million euro ($324 million) fine Monday on ride-hailing service Uber for allegedly transferring personal details of European drivers to the United States without adequate protection. Uber called the decision flawed and unjustified and said it would appeal.

The Dutch Data Protection Authority said the data transfers spanning more than two years amounted to a serious breach of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which requires technical and organizational measures aimed at protecting user data.

“In Europe, the GDPR protects the fundamental rights of people, by requiring businesses and governments to handle personal data with due care,” Dutch DPA chairman Aleid Wolfsen said in a statement.

“But sadly, this is not self-evident outside Europe. Think of governments that can tap data on a large scale. That is why businesses are usually obliged to take additional measures if they store personal data of Europeans outside the European Union. Uber did not meet the requirements of the GDPR to ensure the level of protection to the data with regard to transfers to the US. That is very serious.”

The case was initiated by complaints from 170 French Uber drivers, but the Dutch authority issued the fine because Uber’s European headquarters is in the Netherlands.

Uber insisted it did nothing wrong.

“This flawed decision and extraordinary fine are completely unjustified. Uber’s cross-border data transfer process was compliant with GDPR during a 3-year period of immense uncertainty between the EU and US. We will appeal and remain confident that common sense will prevail,” the company said in a statement.

The alleged breach came after the EU’s top court ruled in 2020 that an agreement known as Privacy Shield that allowed thousands of companies — from tech giants to small financial firms — to transfer data to the United States was invalid because the American government could snoop on people’s data.

The Dutch data protection agency said that following the EU court ruling, standard clauses in contracts could provide a basis for transferring data outside the EU, “but only if an equivalent level of protection can be guaranteed in practice.”

“Because Uber no longer used Standard Contractual Clauses from August 2021, the data of drivers from the EU were insufficiently protected,” the watchdog said. It added that Uber has been using the successor to Privacy Shield since the end of last year, ending the alleged breach.