You might have already read about the fact that Amazon Alexa is recording each and every conversation of yours. This sparked controversy and thus Amazon allowed users to delete those conversations.
Now, it has been revealed that even Google Assistant is recording your conversations. Also, it is not just being recorded but also being heard by a person at Google. A report suggests that these conversations are being heard by Google contractors.
Belgian broadcaster VRT News reveals how Google contractors end up listening to conversations. VRT News also suggests that those conversations are being heard live as well as afterwards.
But the worrying part about this revelation is the fact that most of them had not uttered ‘Hey Google’ hotword. This means that Google Assistant is in always listening mode and listening to the conversations.
Now, we know that this is necessary for the speaker to pick up the hotword. But it is not necessary to record those non-hotword conversations.
The person who revealed this information to VRT News was previously a subcontractor to Google. However, he revealed this when he heard about the Amazon Alexa fiasco. He says that those recording are kept as a way to improve the speech recognition of Google Assistant. The subcontractor reveals that they have heard almost everything about users of Google Assistant.
This includes personal conversation, bedroom talks as well as domestic violence too. They need to hear this because they have to transcribe each and everything. Also, they need to judge the age and context of the conversation based on those recordings.
Google has said that it uses “about 0.2% of all audio clips,” to improve its speech recognition. However, VRT says that these conversations have been spread across most of the world. And also that they could easily get enough information about users and their personal information based on those recordings.