Google admits Assistant records you in secret without your knowledge

Google has reportedly admitted that the Google Assistant is recording the user’s audio even if it isn’t triggered by the “Ok Google” hotword.

According to India today, Google representatives apparently told a government body in India that its employees are listening to recordings of conversations between users and the Google Assistant. Although Google previously accepted this, sources told the publication that the company admitted that its AI assistant sometimes records audio on a smartphone or smart speaker even when not called by the user.

Google previously claimed that its employees listen to recordings of what users say to the Google Assistant in order to improve its speech recognition technology for different languages. The company said that only a fraction of the audio is available to its employees and that they won’t hear sensitive conversations. However, there is no information on how Google differentiates between sensitive and general conversations. In addition, in 2019 one of Google’s language checkers leaked sensitive audio data to a Belgian news agency.

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Additionally, Google hasn’t explained why the Assistant records the user’s audio when it’s not triggered by a voice command. We know that the digital helper always listens for his trigger word, just like Amazon’s Alexa, but according to our understanding so far, he only records conversations after he hears “Hey Google” or “OK Google”. If what Google has allegedly admitted to is true, it will open a Pandora box of privacy concerns.

Google’s privacy policy states: “Occasionally the assistant is activated when you did not intend to, because it has mistakenly recognized that you need its help (for example by making a noise that sounds like ‘Hey, Google’ ). If that happens, just say, “Hey Google,” this was not for you and the Assistant will delete the last message it sent to Google. “The policy does not include any other cases of unprovoked recordings by the Assistant.

A member of the Indian panel investigating Google commented: “In its terms and conditions, Google clearly states that audio recordings are recorded and stored between users and their Google Smart Speakers and Google Assistant devices. But the terms do not mention that his staff can listen to excerpts from these recordings. In addition, Google says in its privacy policy that it will pass on personal data outside of Google if the user has given their consent. This is a serious invasion of user privacy. “

Another senior official from India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said, “The government is investigating the problem that companies like Google typically do not delete the data they hold and keep the transcripts until a user manually deletes the information.”