Protect Your Privacy: Disable Chrome’s Enhanced Autofill

Enhanced Autofill: “Let The Data Harvest Begin!”

Picture this: 13 text fields glaring at you in an online form. Google’s intent is to streamline form completion and make Chrome your comprehensive digital assistant. This promise of convenience, however, comes at a cost: your saved time translates into more data being gathered about you.

Convenience vs Privacy

The recent Chrome update, which began rolling out in November 2025, significantly broadens the scope of autofill functionalities. Beyond the usual credit card and password storage, Chrome is now memorising a variety of additional details—everything from your home and workplace information to flight bookings, loyalty card numbers, and even vehicle details. While Google promotes this as enhancing efficiency, it also serves to build a comprehensive, structured profile of you for various transactions.

On mobile devices, the payoff is improved usability: streamlined forms, accurate suggestions, and reduced errors. Even international address input has become less of a hassle. In essence, you gain efficiency while Chrome gathers more information about you!

Importantly, many of the sensitive features—such as storing your passport number, vehicle identification number (VIN), and loyalty card data—rely on a setting known as “Enhanced Autofill,” which is turned off by default. To activate this new autofill capability, you must be logged in to your Google Account in Chrome and manually enable “Enhanced Autofill” within your Chrome settings (chrome://settings/autofill).

The Law

Canada and the US have long been working to align with European privacy laws, and the situation with this new Autofill feature is no exception. While there haven’t been major investigations by the EU specifically related to this enhancement, it raises valid concerns that resonate with the principles of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the focus of European data protection authorities (DPAs):

• Data Minimisation: Regulators are scrutinising the collection of highly sensitive data, such as passport numbers and VINs. The essential question is: Is this extent of data necessary? Google needs to justify that storing such personal information serves a practical and beneficial purpose beyond simply integrating you into the Chrome/Google ecosystem.
• Explicit Consent: According to GDPR, consent must be freely given, clearly specified, well-informed, and unmistakable. Google has already addressed this issue by setting “Enhanced Autofill” to off by default, mandating explicit user approval before saving or autofilling this sensitive information. This is an essential safeguard for European users.
• Cross-Site Tracking: The overarching regulatory focus is on Google’s long-term strategies for tracking, including projects like Privacy Sandbox. Privacy advocates perceive this extensive integration as another step to amass first-party data (that is, data linked directly to a Google Account) in anticipation of a web experience devoid of third-party cookies.

The Chromium Question: Where Do MS Edge & Others Stand?

When Google rolls out a new feature in Chrome, users on other browsers like Microsoft Edge, Brave, and Vivaldi often wonder: Will we be getting this too? Sometimes, they also want to know how to disable it.

For your information, all these browsers are built upon the Chromium core; they share a foundational autofill engine. General improvements to form detection, reliability, and security typically carry over across these platforms. However, Google is unlikely to incorporate these specific “enhancements” into the Chromium core since they rely heavily on in-depth integration with Google Accounts and cloud services for synchronization.

At www.URTech.ca, we prefer Microsoft Edge, which will not inherit these Chrome features. Nevertheless, Edge synchronises data via Microsoft Accounts and is developing its own unique enhancements, including the use of AI (such as GPT-4) for more intelligent form filling.

The Wrap

While overall user experience benefits from these updates, the advanced data capture features remain exclusive to Chrome. This approach effectively ties users more deeply into the Google ecosystem. In contrast, other developers, like Microsoft, are likely to introduce their proprietary features and data strategies instead of imitating Google’s methods.

Moreover, consider this: the more data you allow any single tool to handle, the more intricate your digital footprint becomes. This increases your risk for potential cybersecurity threats, such as identity theft.