Is Google Gemini safe? Age rules, kids' access, privacy and government inquiries

The short answer

It depends on who is using it and what they share. As of October 29, 2026, Google's help center says you must be 13, or the applicable age in your country, to use Gemini with a personal Google Account. Google says a parent can give a child under 13 access through Family Link, and that minors who are signed in get added content filters.

On privacy, Google's Gemini Apps Privacy Hub says a subset of chats is read by human reviewers, including reviewers from Google's service providers, and that reviewed chats are kept for up to three years. It says that when the Keep Activity setting is on, Google uses your activity to improve its services, including training generative AI models. You can turn that setting off, set chats to auto-delete, or delete them yourself.

Google received letters from two groups of state attorneys general in 2025, a 2024 letter from Montana's attorney general about Gemini and a September 2025 letter from a U.S. senator, and its parent company, Alphabet, received a September 2025 FTC study order. According to court filings, a suit filed in federal court in March 2026 brings wrongful-death and product-liability claims over Gemini; Google has asked the court to dismiss it. These are letters, a study and allegations, not findings.

Who can use Gemini and how age is checked

• Minimum age: Google's help page on signing in to Gemini Apps says you must be 13, or the applicable age in your country, to use Gemini with a personal or school Google Account. Work accounts require users to be 18 or older.
• Younger users: Google's safety center page on Gemini says it applies stricter content policies and default protections for younger users, aimed at age-inappropriate content such as content about illegal or age-gated substances. It says younger users are shown an onboarding video with tips on using AI responsibly.
• Age checks: we did not find a Gemini help page that describes how Google checks a user's age. In a July 30, 2025 post, Google said it was starting to use machine learning in the U.S. to estimate whether a user is under 18 from signals already tied to their Google Account, and to apply protections across its products. It said users estimated wrongly can correct their age with a government ID or a selfie. That post does not mention Gemini.
• App store rating: as of October 29, 2026, Apple's App Store lists the Google Gemini app as 13+, with infrequent mature or suggestive themes and infrequent sexual content or nudity among its content descriptors.

Children under 13 and Family Link

Google's help article for parents, titled Guide your child's Gemini Apps experience, says parents can give a child under 13, or under the applicable age in their country, access to Gemini Apps with a supervised Google Account managed in Family Link. As of October 29, 2026, Google's help center describes it this way:

• Turning access on or off: the parents' article says a parent must enable access before a child under 13 can use Gemini Apps. In the current Family Link app, the path is to select your child, then Controls, then Gemini, then Gemini Apps. Other Google help pages say a Family Link manager can turn access off. Google's parents' article does not say whether parents can see their child's Gemini chats.
• Parent notice: Google says parents get an email when their child first activates the app.
• Content filters: Google says minors who are signed in get added content filters meant to keep Gemini from claiming to be a person, claiming to have human emotions, or role-playing as a harmful character. It also says filters are not perfect and a child may see content a parent would not want them to see.
• Activity: Google says the Keep Activity setting is not available to users under 13, and that Hey Google and Voice Match cannot be used with Gemini Apps by users under 13.
• Where it works: Google says Gemini Apps are not available for supervised accounts in the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and that access for supervised accounts is rolling out gradually. Its sign-in help page says the Gemini web app cannot be used with an account managed by Family Link, and its help page for the Gemini app on iPhone and iPad says that app cannot be used with such an account either.

Content rules and crisis features

Google's Gemini app safety and policy guidelines say Gemini should not produce, among other things:

• material that exploits or sexualizes children, including child sexual abuse material;
• content that encourages or enables real-world harm, such as instructions for suicide or other self-harm, including eating disorders;
• sexually explicit material, including pornography and erotic content;
• gratuitous violence and gore, harassment, and harmful false information about health, safety or finances.

The same page says Gemini may sometimes produce content that breaks these guidelines, and that Google offers tools to report it.

Crisis features: in an April 7, 2026 post, Google said it was introducing a one-touch interface that, when Gemini recognizes a conversation indicating a possible suicide or self-harm crisis, lets the user call, text or chat with a crisis hotline or visit its website, and that the option stays available for the rest of the conversation. It said Gemini will also show a redesigned module pointing to mental health information, and that it designs responses to avoid validating self-harm urges and has trained Gemini not to reinforce false beliefs. Google said Gemini is not a substitute for professional care or crisis support.

Protections for younger users: in the same post, Google listed existing protections for younger users, including guardrails against Gemini acting like a companion or claiming to be human, avoiding language that simulates intimacy, and safeguards against encouraging bullying.

Privacy: human review, training, retention and deletion

These points come from Google's Gemini Apps Privacy Hub, last updated October 13, 2026, and its help pages for personal accounts.

• Human review: Google says a subset of chats is reviewed by human reviewers, including trained reviewers from its service providers, to improve its services and help keep Gemini safe. It says chats are disconnected from your account before they are sent to service providers. Google asks users not to enter confidential information they would not want a reviewer to see.
• Reviewed chats: Google says chats that have been reviewed are kept for up to three years, and that deleting your activity does not delete chats that were already reviewed.
• Training: Google says that when Keep Activity is on, it uses your Gemini activity to provide, develop and improve its services, including training generative AI models, with help from human reviewers. Its help center says Keep Activity is on by default for users 18 and older. Google says audio and Gemini Live video and screen shares are not used to improve its services by default.
• Turning Keep Activity off: Google says future chats then do not appear in your activity and are not used to train AI models unless you send feedback, but are still kept with your account for up to 72 hours to respond to you and to process feedback.
• Temporary chats: Google says temporary chats are kept for 72 hours and are not used to train its AI models.
• Auto-delete: Google says Gemini activity is deleted automatically after 18 months by default, and that you can change this to 3 or 36 months or choose not to auto-delete.
• Ads: Google's Privacy Hub says your Gemini chats are not used to show you ads.
• What is kept longer: Google says it keeps some data, such as how often you use Gemini Apps, until you delete your Google Account. It says disconnecting a connected app does not delete your Gemini Apps activity.
• App store label: as of October 29, 2026, the Gemini app's App Store privacy label, which Google supplies, lists data linked to the user that includes contact info, location, contacts, user content, search and browsing history, identifiers, usage data and sensitive info, and lists coarse location, email address, name and user ID as used for the developer's advertising or marketing.

How to delete Gemini chats or turn off activity

As of October 29, 2026, Google's help center gives these steps for a computer:

• Open gemini.google.com, select Settings & help, then Activity. You can also go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini.
• To delete one chat, select Delete activity item next to it.
• To delete a range, select Delete above your activity and choose Last hour, Last day, Custom range or All time.
• To stop saving activity, select On near the top of the Activity page and choose Turn off, or Turn off and delete activity.
• Google says deleted activity is removed from view right away and then from its storage systems. Deleting a shared chat does not delete its public link, and deleting a chat with a Gem does not delete the Gem.
• Google's Privacy Hub says you can export your Gemini Apps data through Google Takeout.

Government letters and inquiries

These are letters and a study, not findings or enforcement cases.

• Montana: on February 28, 2024, Montana's attorney general wrote to Alphabet and Google with questions about Gemini's outputs, including images the letter describes as historically inaccurate. The letter said Google's claims about accuracy may be deceptive under Montana's consumer protection law and asked for answers by March 29, 2024.
• 44 attorneys general: on August 25, 2025, a bipartisan group co-led by Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee wrote to 13 companies, including Google, asking them to adopt safeguards that keep their AI products from sexualizing children.
• FTC: on September 11, 2025, the FTC issued 6(b) orders to seven companies, including Alphabet, Google's parent company, seeking information on how their AI chatbots that act as companions affect children and teens, how they enforce age limits and how they use or share personal information from conversations. A 6(b) order is a study, not an enforcement case.
• U.S. Senate: on September 18, 2025, Senator Josh Hawley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, wrote to Google and four other companies, in what his office described as an expansion of his investigation, asking for communications about their AI chatbot policies by October 17, 2025.
• 42 attorneys general: in a letter announced December 10, 2025 and led by Pennsylvania, the group wrote to 13 AI companies, including Google, asking for safety testing, recall procedures, clear consumer warnings and other safeguards, and asked them to commit to changes by January 16, 2026.

On the official sites we checked, we did not find a state or federal enforcement action against Google over the Gemini app's consumer safety or privacy practices as of October 29, 2026.

Lawsuits

Gavalas v. Google LLC et al. was filed on March 4, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Alphabet Inc. and Google LLC, according to the court's case page. According to a motion to dismiss that Google and Alphabet filed on May 13, 2026 (No. 5:26-cv-01849-EKL), the complaint brings product-liability, unfair competition, wrongful-death and survival claims over Gemini; the companies asked the court to dismiss it, and a hearing was set for August 19, 2026. These are allegations, not findings. As of October 29, 2026, we have not confirmed a ruling on the motion.

Our chatbot lawsuits pages track other suits involving AI chatbots, including our guides to ChatGPT lawsuits and Character.AI lawsuits.

Which laws may apply

No chatbot law names Gemini. Whether Gemini counts as a companion chatbot, an AI companion or a conversational AI service under a particular state law is a legal question. These laws set duties for chatbot operators:

• California SB 243, in effect since January 1, 2026: according to its author's office, companion chatbot operators must keep a protocol for responding to suicidal ideation, suicide and self-harm that refers users to crisis services, and must disclose that companion chatbots may not be suitable for some minors. A later law, SB 1119, signed September 10, 2026, removes SB 243's duties toward users an operator knows are minors, such as AI-status and break reminders and sexual-content measures, on January 1, 2027; SB 1119's own child safety duties begin July 1, 2027. The author's office says SB 243 lets families sue.
• New York's AI companion law (General Business Law Article 47): operators must have a protocol to detect and respond to expressions of suicidal ideation or self-harm and refer users to crisis services such as 988, and must tell users at the start of an interaction, and at least every three hours, that they are not talking to a human.
• Idaho's Conversational AI Safety Act (S 1297), signed March 31, 2026 and effective July 1, 2027: operators of public conversational AI services must disclose that the service is AI when people could be misled, adopt a suicide-response protocol with crisis referrals, and meet extra duties for minor account holders, including parent tools for users under 13. The law excludes some tools, including features inside other software and voice assistants on consumer devices. The Attorney General enforces it.
• The FTC's 6(b) study and the two attorneys general letters described above each have their own record on this site, linked below.

We are not saying Google is covered by, or out of compliance with, any of these laws. It may have practices it has not published, and whether a law applies to it is a legal question this guide does not decide.