Google listens to audios collected from Google Home and Assistant

Google Home

A couple of weeks ago it was mentioned that Amazon employees listened to users' audios, to improve the detection accuracy of your Amazon Echo. It was also confirmed that the company saves transcripts and recordings indefinitely. Only if the user deletes them manually, they disappear and this is not the case in all cases. That is why many feared the same would happen with Google Home and Google Assistant.

It is the Belgian media VRT NWS responsible for a new investigation. In this case, they have investigated Google and confirm that employees of the firm listen to the recordings that have been made with Google Home speakers and through the Google Assistant app on smartphones. As in the case of Amazon, its goal is to make the search engine smarter and work better.

It was after the news about Amazon jumped that a Google subcontractor contacted this Belgian medium. He could confirm that Google does the same. The system that employees use to listen to the recordings was shown of the assistant. Although it is said that employees cannot share audios with anyone, at least according to the company's privacy and security policies.

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Google Home Mini - Max

Despite this, this medium has had access to more than 1,000 audio clips recorded with Google Home and Google Assistant. In many of these audios you can also find personal information of the users. Data such as their addresses, which the media then used to contact these people and verify that it really was their voice. For Google, the really interesting thing in this case is not what the user says, but the way he says it. Since they use audios necessary to enter the learning algorithm of their assistant. And occasionally he needs a human hand.

These audio recordings are always disconnected from the user. So the professionals of the company do not know who they belong to. The username is deleted and a serial number is used. A detail that is somewhat strange, is that the Belgian media claims that 153 of the clips recorded with Google Home they were recorded without the user knowing. Either Google said OK by mistake, so it started recording or the user activated the application on their smartphone using Google Assistant, by mistake, and gave an order without knowing they were really doing it. So it is also something that can happen to users with these devices on occasion.

Google response

Google Home and Home Mini

Google has issued a statement about it, after the publication of this news. The company acknowledges using employees to listen to these audios. They are professionals for these types of tasks, although they confirm that they are currently investigating the situation to see if they really have to take measures or not in this regard.

According to the American company, they work with language experts from around the world to improve speech technology. This is done using transcriptions of a small amount of audio clips. A task that is crucial for the improvement of Google Assistant. In addition, the company claims to have a small amount of audio clips. They say the language experts judge only about 0.2% of all audio clips that are not linked to personally identifiable information. Although in this case it seems that some would have been cast.

That is why they seek to investigate these accusations of the Belgian media. Since if true, one of the language experts would have violated the security policy. I would have leaked these audio clips in Dutch, where personal data was mentioned as the address. Google is currently investigating these facts. So they will take action once the facts have been clarified at all times. We do not know how long it will take this investigation of the American company.

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