Gboard is the default keyboard on many Android devices, including Google Pixels, and has more than 10 billion downloads on the Google Play Store, making it a widely used and trusted typing tool. It has plenty of useful features (some of which require a network connection), but it also has a few downsides—including some privacy concerns. While these issues may not be enough to get you to quit Gboard altogether, you should know what data it collects, where that information goes, and how to keep your inputs safe.
Gboard’s data privacy issues
Many Gboard users have expressed concern about the keyboard logging inputs and sharing data with Google. Reporting from Android Police found that Gboard activity could potentially be intercepted, decoded, and tied directly to users’ identities.
According to the data safety policy listed on Gboard’s Google Play Store page, the keyboard may collect a range of data, including device IDs, app activity (e.g., installed apps, in-app search history, and app interactions), voice or sound recordings, and diagnostics and performance data. Google says it doesn’t share this data with third parties, but users also cannot request that their data be deleted.
Google’s own support page states that Gboard sends searches, usage statistics, and voice recordings from talk-to-text to Google, though saved words and anything else you type (such as passwords or chats) aren’t transmitted. Google may, however, use your inputs for on-device training of its AI models, a process called federated learning, and send that information back to its servers. It may also request access to your audio snippets to improve speech recognition.
You can opt out of Gboard data sharing
Again, you may not need to give Gboard up altogether, but you can make some conscious choices about what it sends to Google. First, you can turn off federated learning (which is enabled by default) and clear all on-device data to prevent it from being used for AI training. Go to your Android Settings > System > Language & input > On-screen keyboard > Gboard > Privacy and select Delete learned words and data. If you think you may have opted into audio data sharing, tap Settings > Privacy at the top of your keyboard and toggle off Audio donations.
What do you think so far?
Under Settings > Privacy in Gboard, you can also disable usage statistics sharing, personalization, and “Improve for everyone” data collection, which sends patterns of words and phrases to Google’s servers.
Users who are especially privacy-conscious may want to consider a Gboard alternative, such as HeliBoard, which is offline, free, and open source, or FUTO, which also works offline and doesn’t collect or share user data. Of course, these tools will have their own limitations compared to Gboard’s features.
