Google vows to do more to protect users’ voice data

Google outlined measures to protect user voice data in an effort at transparency after the company faced blowback over privacy concerns associated with its “Assistant” product. 

“We believe you should be able to easily understand how your data is used and why, so you can make choices that are right for you,” Google said in a statement. 

“When we learned about these concerns, we immediately paused this process of human transcription globally to investigate, and conducted a full review of our systems and controls,” Google added. {mosads}

Google said it will update its settings to highlight when its audio recording setting is turned on. 

The recording feature was never set up by default, and remains an option for users to opt-in to use. 

Only users that turn the Voice & Audio Activity on have their recordings used in the human review process, Google said. The “audio snippets” reviewed by users who use the setting are not associated with any user, according to the tech company. 

Google also said it will also be focusing on identifying ways to better understand unintentional sounds that activate the Assistant. The product deletes audio when it realized it was unintentionally activated.