“OK Google, you can stop recording our conversation now.”
The fact that Google records your voice calls with their voice services is not shocking at all. After all, the business already logs and keeps track of your browsing and search behavior. The business is more familiar with you than your mother is. Fortunately, though, locating and eliminating Google’s audio trail is not too difficult.
What Voice and Audio Activity Google Stores
Check out Google’s speech and audio policy if you’re worried that it may have discovered potentially sensitive information, or if you simply value your privacy. Google records every time you touch a microphone icon or speak “OK Google” to use Google’s voice services.
Not only is a transcript of your conversations with Google retained. The business claims that in addition to hearing your voice and following auditory commands, they also detect sound from “a few seconds before.” That’s correct, even before you turn it on, Google is listening. Therefore, Google audio may be able to capture sensitive speech even if you are not utilizing it for sensitive purposes. This could happen even before you use Google’s audio services.
It seems from a little test that Google Docs does not store voice dictation. But that tracking might have just been postponed. Not every audio and speech activity appears in your account right away. To make sure Google doesn’t maintain a separate record of your voice commands, it’s important verifying your speech and audio activity data if you’ve been utilizing Google Doc’s voice capture tools to write client notes or other private information there.
It is also not necessary to have an Internet connection to save audio. Recordings will continue to be preserved even if you’re not online but are logged into your Google account and have enabled voice and audio activity.
Seeing, Hearing, and Deleting Your Voice Activity
Finding out what data Google has been storing is comparatively simple according to Google. You may control the activity controls on your account under personal information and privacy in your account profile. You can view, hear, and remove Google’s recordings by looking at “your voice searches and commands”. You can even instruct it to cease logging your audio into your account. Simply halt all audio and speech activity (or “pause” it as Google would say).
However, turning off Google’s recordings permanently is not simple. Google will retain a record as long as you use voice and audio functions. Google will still save any voice searches even if you have disabled audio and voice activity; they will merely be identified by anonymous codes that aren’t associated with your account. The only way to completely prevent Google from collecting data is to cease use Google’s speech and audio services.