Is Adobe Accessing Your Private Data? [u]

Posted on June 8, 2024 by Larry

[Update June 23, 2024. Earlier this month, anger and distrust reigned as Adobe’s Terms of Use were discovered to be far more intrusive than most of us expected. Adobe reacted to the outrage by revising and clarifying their Terms of Use. Here are the highlights, along with a link.

Adobe does not own your content in any way.
All content stored on local devices cannot be monitored by Adobe.
All content stored on Adobe cloud services is licensed to Adobe for purposes of providing their services and meeting legal requirements, but you still own it.
Adobe does not use your content for training generative AI, unless you upload it to Adobe Stock.

Here’s the link to their revised Terms of Use. Note that Adobe now provides summaries of what the legal language means. Make a special point to check out sections 2.2 and 4.

(The following was written June 8, 2024.)

Last week, news broke of a change to Adobe’s Terms and Conditions for all Creative Cloud applications. These Terms can not be bypassed – you either accept them or you can’t use any Creative Cloud apps.

First reported by a security blogger on Tuesday, I read it about last Thursday in this AppleInsider article.

NOTE: You can also read about it here in this FastCompany article

The key points are:

“…The update to section 2.2, ‘Our Access to Your Content,’ includes verbiage that Adobe ‘may access, view, or listen to your Content through both automated and manual methods, but only in limited ways, and only as permitted by law.'”
“…The Content, outlined in section 4.1, includes ‘any text, information, communication, or material, such as audio files, video files, electronic documents, or images, that you upload, import into, embed for use by, or create using the Services and Software.'”
“…Section 4.2 states that users grant a ‘non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free sublicensable, license, to use, reproduce, publicly display, distribute, modify, create derivative works based on, publicly perform, and translate the Content.'”

As you can imagine, giving Adobe unlimited permission to do anything they want with your files, media or projects scared a lot of people due to its perceived overwhelming invasiveness.

Another big concern is preventing your creative work from training AI systems without your permission or compensation. This behavior reminds me of the typical Silicon Valley mindset of “break the rules now, ask forgiveness later.” All too often, later never comes.

Lawsuits alleging creative theft are already in progress against ChatGPT, MidJourney, and Stability. And Meta is a privacy-invasion case study all on its own.

As the firestorm continued to grow, Adobe remained silent for three days, then issued the following statement, as reported in AppleInsider.

“Adobe accesses user content for a number of reasons, including the ability to deliver some of our most innovative cloud-based features, such as Photoshop Neural Filters and Remove Background in Adobe Express, as well as to take action against prohibited content,” the company said at the time. “Adobe does not access, view or listen to content that is stored locally on any user’s device.”

While helpful, this didn’t clear up the confusion – especially regarding how to protect projects covered by NDA statements or whether a user’s creative content is training AI.

24 hours later, Adobe released another statement, making the following points:

Access is needed for Adobe applications and services to perform the functions they are designed and used for (such as opening and editing files for the user or creating thumbnails or a preview for sharing).
Access is needed to deliver some of our most innovative cloud-based features such as Photoshop Neural Filters, Liquid Mode or Remove Background.
For content processed or stored on Adobe servers, Adobe may use technologies and other processes, including escalation for manual (human) review, to screen for certain types of illegal content (such as child sexual abuse material), or other abusive content or behavior.

WHAT I DID

I sent an email to my contacts at Adobe on Thursday night asking:

What is Adobe’s purpose in changing the Terms of Service?
How can users opt out of granting this permission?
How can creatives continue to use Adobe products while assuring themselves that Adobe won’t spy upon, access, or otherwise view projects that are under NDA?

So far I haven’t had a response. I’ll update this article if I do.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO

Personally, I believe that any projects created and stored locally on your system are not accessible to Adobe. So any projects that you need to keep private MUST be stored locally. This also means that any collaborative projects or libraries must be stored on local servers, not cloud servers.

However, you should also assume that any libraries, files, media or projects stored in the Creative Cloud – or, really, any Cloud service – are not private and will be shared with people you don’t know for purposes that are never revealed. This includes training AI models with your data.

At this point, we are waiting for Adobe to clarify what exactly they are doing with our data and what we can do – if anything – to prevent it.

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39 Responses to Is Adobe Accessing Your Private Data? [u]

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Jason says:

June 10, 2024 at 7:20 am

As a wise IT professional once told me, ‘the Cloud is just a fancy way of saying someone else’s computer.’

Reply
- Larry says:
  
  June 10, 2024 at 12:37 pm
  
  Jason:
  
  Exactly correct. And one that you have no idea who is accessing it, or what they are doing on it.
  
  Larry
  
  Reply
Martin Simmons says:

June 10, 2024 at 7:31 am

I want to go back the the last version of Photoshop before a subscription was required. I can still use that version without the newer features & do just fine. I’m never on the web while using it or editing video anyway.
Would that be a secure way to use PS?

Reply
- Larry says:
  
  June 10, 2024 at 12:38 pm
  
  Martin:
  
  A more secure way is to store everything locally. Don’t use libraries and don’t use Creative cloud.
  
  Larry
  
  Reply
  - Alan Sheltra says:
    
    June 11, 2024 at 12:01 pm
    
    An even better, way is to use another app, such as Affinity Photo (Designer or Publisher). They don’t use cloud services at all. And best of all, no subscription needed.
    
    I’m horrified Adobe would decide to do this. They’re already getting a lot of back-lash on this.
    
    AniMajik Productions
    
    Reply
Paul Hartel says:

June 10, 2024 at 8:07 am

Cancelled my subscription on Saturday. Will be interested to see how some mid-level, lower-level production companies that use Adobe for un-scripted will deal with this. Most of the responses I saw on social media made no distinction between locally based and cloud and users were furious.

DaVinci Resolve was mentioned often. Although I don’t see this resulting in the same sort of desertion that affected Apple with Final Cut X [Disaster], I do expect it to affect Adobe significantly. And they won’t get these users back.

Reply
Gregg Hall says:

June 10, 2024 at 12:02 pm

Even if you keep your projects on local media the wording of their new terms seems to grant Adobe rights to your creative works just for USING their software products. Never mind uploading to the cloud:

“…The Content, outlined in section 4.1, includes ‘any text, information, communication, or material, such as audio files, video files, electronic documents, or images, that you … CREATE USING THE SERVICES AND SOFTWARE.’”

It doesn’t matter where you store it. Adobe has a claim right to your media if they can prove you used any of their software to create it.

Reply
- Larry says:
  
  June 10, 2024 at 12:39 pm
  
  Gregg:
  
  Last Friday, Adobe clarified to say that media/projects stored locally are not affected by these terms and conditions.
  
  Larry
  
  Reply
  - Tomas says:
    
    June 10, 2024 at 3:52 pm
    
    A blog post normally won’t prevail over the wording in the terms and conditions of the end-user licence agreement…
    
    Reply
    - Larry Jordan says:
      
      June 10, 2024 at 4:18 pm
      
      Tomas:
      
      True.
      
      Larry
      
      Reply
Estelle Gow says:

June 10, 2024 at 2:39 pm

FYI — I just went into my Adobe account to cancel it (Creative Cloud All Apps 100GB), and Adobe offered me two months free to postpone cancellation. Just in case anyone wants a little more time to decide.

Reply
- Larry Jordan says:
  
  June 10, 2024 at 2:43 pm
  
  Estelle:
  
  Interesting. And good to know.
  
  Thanks,
  
  Larry
  
  Reply
Kit Laughlin says:

June 10, 2024 at 2:48 pm

Search for “enshittification” (Cory Doctorow’s marvellous term). Adobe’s latest move is a perfect example.

There are alternatives to all of the Creative Cloud products. I moved away from Adobe years ago, when mandatory subscriptions were the only way of using Photoshop.

Reply
B.George says:

June 10, 2024 at 5:21 pm

It’s Time to Switch to Davinci.

I am reminded of a small thing Grant Petty said in one of the keynotes a few years back about how customers are treated by these big companies.
How companies punish you the more you use their software.

Here is that video.
https://www.youtube.com/live/BVjP6RVFjPg?si=v6iryd6N600wxGYg&t=2193

at 39:01 He talks about customer data.

Reply
Vic says:

June 10, 2024 at 6:24 pm

Dear Larry,

Thank you for this information!
If it were not for your newsletter, I may not have known about this!

Best Regards,
Vic

Reply
- Larry Jordan says:
  
  June 10, 2024 at 6:39 pm
  
  Vic:
  
  Happy to help.
  
  Larry
  
  Reply
- Gayle C. says:
  
  June 12, 2024 at 3:41 pm
  
  Ditto
  
  Reply
Geoff Crane says:

June 10, 2024 at 8:13 pm

Adobe searching for illegal content is a complete smoke screen, I can’t imagine anyone in that industry using adobe products to edit or post such material, I think the real reason is to use our footage and programs to train AI software.Shame on you adobe!

Reply
- Larry Jordan says:
  
  June 11, 2024 at 5:28 am
  
  Geoff:
  
  Searching for illegal content is not a complete smoke screen. CSAM laws are pretty severe. However, they don’t require licensing your content.
  
  Larry
  
  Reply
jim mcquaid says:

June 11, 2024 at 4:24 am

I used Premiere Suite after the Final Cut X intro disaster, but after “subscription licensing” become the only way to use it, and since FCP had settled down, I returned to Final Cut.

While no tech company is blameless, I feel that Apple at least tries to do the right thing on privacy. I would drop Adobe today if I had been a user.

Now don’t get me started about Toyota!

Reply
- Larry Jordan says:
  
  June 11, 2024 at 5:27 am
  
  Jim;
  
  Thanks for your comment. And, no, I won’t ask you about Toyota! (That’s for a different blog.)
  
  Larry
  
  Reply