Adobe made a small change to its terms and conditions and that made its users very, very unhappy — scrutinizing data to find illegal content is a risky move

Angry woman using a laptop
(Image credit: Butsaya / Shutterstock)

Adobe recently updated its terms of use, and although companies do this all the time, these new changes have sparked a significant amount of discord and discussion among users.

The updated terms of use give Adobe access to any form of media uploaded to its Creative Cloud and Document Cloud services, a change which immediately sparked a privacy backlash and led to many users calling for a boycott. So annoyed were paying customers that Adobe was forced to issue a statement clarifying what the updated terms mean, and what they cover.

The changes Adobe made include switching the wording from “we will only access, view or listen to your content in limited ways” to “we may access, view or listen to your content” and the addition of “through both automated and manual methods”. In the Content section, Adobe made changes to how it would scan user data, adding the manual mention.

Manual (human) review

In its explanation of the terms changes, Adobe said, “To be clear, Adobe requires a limited license to access content solely for the purpose of operating or improving the services and software and to enforce our terms and comply with law, such as to protect against abusive content.”

The company further explained that Adobe applications and services may access content to perform the role they are designed for, and to apply cloud-based effects and filters. It then said, “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 (for example, patterns of activity that indicate spam or phishing).”

While the intentions behind these changes might be to enhance service quality and ensure compliance with legal standards, permitting the company to have such broad access to personal and potentially sensitive content clearly feels intrusive to many users. The shift from an explicit limitation to a more open-ended permission for content access could be seen as a step backward in terms of user control and data protection and raises concerns about privacy and user trust, which Adobe’s statement doesn’t fully address.

On the plus side, Adobe did take the opportunity to clarify it won’t be using customer content to train its Firefly Gen AI models and that it would never assume ownership of a customer's work.

More from TechRadar Pro

TOPICS
Wayne Williams
Editor

Wayne Williams is a freelancer writing news for TechRadar Pro. He has been writing about computers, technology, and the web for 30 years. In that time he wrote for most of the UK’s PC magazines, and launched, edited and published a number of them too.

Read more
Adobe Sensei
What is Adobe Sensei? Everything we know about Adobe's AI platform
Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant contract intelligence
Adobe's AI assistant can now decipher contract jargon in your PDFs
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom photo plans get a huge price hike, but there's a way to avoid it
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe will kill its popular 20GB Photoshop & Lightroom plans very soon, so make sure you make the right move
A person using a laptop and phone against a sepia background.
Box signs up Adobe Express for image editing tasks
AI image generated by Adobe Firefly of a woman on a street
What is Firefly: everything you need to know about Adobe’s safe AI image generator
Latest in Pro
An image of network security icons for a network encircling a digital blue earth.
Why effective cybersecurity is a team effort
Data leak
Hacked Tata Technologies data leaked by ransomware gang
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan
Intel reveals its new CEO
An AI face in profile against a digital background.
How to harmonize the complexities of global AI regulation
Data center racks with cables and servers
Data centers are being pushed to their limits, but digital twins could help
Person using a laptop.
The hidden costs of your on-premise software
Latest in News
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 could be in line for a Galaxy S25 Ultra-level camera upgrade
Data leak
Hacked Tata Technologies data leaked by ransomware gang
Three iPhones on a green and blue background showing trails on Apple Maps
iOS 18.4 will give your iPhone a much-needed maps upgrade – but only if you're in the EU
A close up of Billy Bob Thornton's Tommy Norris in Paramount Plus' Landman TV series
The Taylor Sheridan supremacy lives on at Paramount+ as Landman gets renewed for season 2
Ryzen 9000 promotional material
AMD's most powerful processor ever actually runs better on Windows 10 than Windows 11
The logo and key art for Inzoi.
The newly revealed Inzoi system requirements are enough to make me go back to The Sims 4