Google's Voice search records everything it hears

The price of using voice search is that Google records many of the conversations that take place in their presence. Users wishing to understand what Google has captured can do so by accessing the portal the company introduced in 2015. Their personal history pages on the site include both a page showing activity on the web and a separate specific audio page that lists the captured recordings. The information made available there includes when and how by what device or app the sound was recorded and a transcript if Google was able to successfully perform speech-to-text processing. Users are free to delete their recordings. Preventing the company from making these recordings in the first place is simple enough: turn off the virtual assistant and don't use voice search - if that's a tradeoff you're willing to make.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601583/how-alexa-siri-and-google-assistant-will-make-money-off-you/

Writer: Andrew Griffin
Publication: Independent