Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google representatives apparently told a government panel that the Assistant secretly records user audio.
- The company also reiterated that its employees sometimes listen to Google Assistant conversations.
Google has reportedly admitted that the Google Assistant records user audio even when it’s not triggered by the “Ok Google” hotword.
According to IndiaToday‘s sources, Google representatives apparently told a government panel in India that its employees listen to recordings of conversations between users and the Google Assistant. While this is something Google has previously accepted, sources also told the publication that the company admitted that its AI assistant sometimes records audio on a smartphone or a smart speaker even when it’s not summoned by the user.
Google earlier claimed that its employees listen to recordings of what users say to the Google Assistant to improve its speech recognition technology for different languages. The company said that only a fraction of the audio is accessible to its employees and that they don’t listen to sensitive conversations. However, there’s no information about how Google distinguishes between sensitive and general conversations. Also, in 2019, one of Google’s language reviewers had leaked confidential audio data to a Belgian news outlet.
Related: Google Assistant guide – Make the most of your virtual assistant
Moreover, Google didn’t explain why Assistant records user audio when it’s not triggered by a voice command. We know that the digital helper is always listening for its trigger word, just like Amazon’s Alexa, but our understanding till now was that it only records conversations after it hears “Hey Google” or “OK Google.” If what Google has reportedly admitted is true, it opens up a pandora’s box of privacy issues.
Google’s privacy policy states, “Occasionally, the Assistant will activate when you didn’t intend it to because it incorrectly detected that you wanted its help (like by a noise that sounds like “Hey, Google”). If that happens, just say Hey Google, that wasn’t for you, and the Assistant will delete the last thing it sent to Google.” There’s no wording in the policy about other instances of unprovoked recordings by the Assistant.
Commenting on the matter, a member of the Indian panel investigating Google said, “In its terms and conditions, Google states clearly that audio recordings between users and their Google smart speakers and Google Assistant devices are recorded and stored. But the terms do not mention that its employees can listen to excerpts from these recordings. Also, Google, in its privacy policy, says that it will share personal information outside of Google when it has users’ consent. This is a serious breach of user privacy.”
Another senior official from India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said, “The government is looking into the issue of companies like Google not deleting the stored data as a rule and keeping the transcripts until a user manually deletes the information.”