The iPhone-specific app was released in Apple's new iOS 17.2 update and prompts users to write about their lives to'reflect and practice gratitude,' according to the Cupertino company. However, tech experts have pointed out that the app's default settings make your phone discoverable by nearby devices, not just when you use it. The Journal app exploits users' photos, workout data, recent music listening history, and even location data to craft so-called journal entries that are mostly complete before the phone's owner even enters a single word. These capabilities have sparked privacy concerns and fears over the data that may be shared without people's knowledge. Some have also noted the new app's similarity to Google's'Project Ellmann,' which uses the company's ChatGPT rival Gemini to comb through users' data and craft an overarching story of your life.

Confidential documents presented at a recent internal Google summit detail the tech giant's plan to create an artificial intelligence (AI) designed to become its users' 'Life Story Teller.' But to do it, the AI will require unprecedented access to each user's personal data. It's unclear where this experimental AI, currently dubbed'Project Ellmann,' will reside among Google's apps and services, but the team behind it works for Google Photos -- and their presentation suggested a tailored AI chatbot. 'We can't answer tough questions or tell good stories without a bird's-eye view of your life,' read one portion of the presentation, made by a Google product manager. Confidential documents presented at a recent internal Google summit detail the tech giant's plan to create an AI designed to become their users' 'Life Story Teller.' Building off the company's ChatGPT rival Gemini, it new project will scrape reams of a user's personal data Building off the company's ChatGPT rival Gemini, Project Ellmann will use'large language models' (LLMs) to synthesize personal information from context said to include biographies of users and their loved ones, as well as stored photo'moments.' But the new developments may spark alarm from those outraged by Google's secret collection of millions of individual's sensitive medical records, code-named Project Nightingale in 2019 -- or anyone who eagerly collects digital privacy tips.