Google Gemini AI for Education: Features, Privacy, and Security Explained
Summary
Education Options: Google's Gemini AI offers three tiers for Education Workspace, which include a complimentary tier and two paid tiers, each providing unique features and considerations for privacy. Learn more here.
Privacy Considerations: Privacy conscious institutions should consider either of the paid tiers (Gemini Education or Gemini Education Premium) as they are containerized and currently adhere to stricter T&Cs
Security: Like most technology Gemini’s security and privacy is highly customizable. Gemini can meet the stringent demands of many institutions, but it requires education on Google and proactivity to arrange settings to meet your standards.
In mid-July, a privacy focused researcher had been working with Google's Gemini and noticed something that they didn't expect. After having worked with Gemini Pro, they went to their Google Drive and clicked on a PDF of their Tax return. To their surprise (and horror), Gemini provided a summary of the document without being asked.
For many institutions automatic scanning of sensitive documents like this would violate their privacy requirements. To help determine Gemini’s feasibility for you, let's look at what Gemini is and how Google handles user data, along with what conditions the researcher created.
What Is Generative AI?
Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) has been in the spotlight ever since OpenAI announced the public release of their ChatGPT at the end of November 2022. But long before ChatGPT was drafting emails, writing reviews, and helping brainstorm ideas for blogposts, Google has been working with data processing and summarization. They released their Gen AI tool for consumers, originally named Duet which was later rebranded to Gemini, and have recently released access to users within Google Workspace for Education.
Comparing Gemini Education Tiers
Free Edition Features
Gemini is the free tier of Gemini for Workspace for Education users. This includes the standard chat with Gemini and will be available to users when the Additional Google Service is enabled by an admin. Access to this service is available at gemini.google.com or through the mobile apps for ios or android.
The free edition presently does not adhere to the Core Google Workspace for Education Terms of Service, but instead is a part of the Additional Google Apps. Google has announced that this will eventually adhere to the higher standard of the Workspace for Education Terms and Conditions .
Until then, your data may be used to improve and/or train AI models or shared with other users or organizations. This means that the privacy conscious institutions should disable this Additional Google Service.
Paid Tiers
Tier 1: Gemini Education
Gemini Education is the first paid tier available for Google Workspace for Education organizations, and for most users provides the necessary features. This tier includes the Chat mentioned above, but also includes Gemini Workspace features.
Gemini Workspace adds a native interface within Google's Workspace for Education applications to help users Brainstorm, Create, Refine, and Summarize documents, presentations, datasets, and emails.
Gemini Workspace is containerized within the document which it was called from and doesn't reference other sources owned by the user or sources outside of the LLM. This is one of the methods which Google has implemented to ensure that information provided to Gemini stays private.
Tier 2: Gemini Education Premium
Gemini Education Premium includes all of the previous features, but additionally has enhancements for Google Meet by the way of "Take notes for me" and "Attend meetings for me." The Premium edition also uses the latest edition of Google's language models, where the non-premium edition relies on an earlier model. Google is also working on data loss prevention features which will leverage Gemini across the organization or target specific users to ensure that content organizations determined to be sensitive doesn't leave the organization.
Enhancing Learning with Gemini
The following are some examples of real-world uses in higher education for faculty and students where Gemini can enhance users' experience or enable them to complete tasks more efficiently.
Student Research: Gemini can help students brainstorm research topics, draft literature reviews, and summarize findings.
Faculty Collaboration: Professors can use Gemini to co-author papers, develop course materials, and streamline administrative tasks.
Accessibility: Gemini can assist students with disabilities by providing alternative text for images, generating audio transcripts, or translating content.
How Google Gemini Protects Your Data
Since Gemini for Workspace is built within the Google Workspace applications, the same protections in place for Drive, Docs, Gmail and the like are applied in keeping content secure, and the same potential for unintended exposure of content further highlights the importance of proper configuration and management of Google Apps within educational institutions.
Your Security Responsibility
In a response to the original scenario around Gemini summarizing the user's documents, a Google spokesperson responded,
This reference to Gemini in Workspace emphasizes the containerization mentioned previously for the paid tiers. Additionally, within the App’s interface, Gemini remains inactive until it has been called.
Through further investigation with Google and the researcher, it was uncovered that they had previously signed up for Google's Generative AI Labs program, "Workspace Labs." This granted the researcher access to early access and experimental features within Gemini. Whether this automatic summary of selected files within Drive will come to production environments or not is yet to be seen, but feedback like this in early access programs helps form the products developed by companies like Google. It also helps course correct when a feature which feels like a good idea to developers raises concerns for end users.
How to Keep Your Workspace Secure
There are a myriad of settings and services which can be configured within the Google Workspace Admin Console. As the Data curator, Google relies on these settings as instructions on how to handle organizations data.
As a consultancy practice, The Burwood Group works with their customers to identify areas of potential concern or inadvertent misconfiguration across multiple platforms, including Google Workspace. Whether the need is training, consultation, augmenting existing staff or as a Managed Service provider, Burwood offers support to organizations to ensure that best practices are followed and users are able to best use the tools provided for them.
As a part of our focus today on Google's Gemini in Education, we have a limited time offer for institutions purchasing Gemini through Burwood where you can save up to 25% off*. The offer ends December 31, 2024, contact us to lock in pricing before it ends.
*
15% off introductory discount until the end of 2024 for Non-Education Plus Customers purchasing 100+ licenses.
25% off introductory discount until the end of the year for Education Plus customers purchasing 100+ licenses.