Google on Monday debunked the claims that often circulate on social media saying that the search engines spy on one’s private conversation to fuel its hyper-targeted adverts across the platform. In a blog post published on July 12, the tech giant clarified that spying on customers’ private chats is a ‘myth’ as Google Assistant is designed to wait in standby mode until it is activated. “Like when you say, ‘Hey Google’ or ‘Ok Google’ it is only then that the AI processes that short snippets of audio to enable the activation.
However, if no activity is detected, Google does not save those audio snippets. When Google Assistant is on standby mode, it “won’t send what you are saying to Google or anyone else,” said the company. Furthermore, Google agreed that there may be instances of unintended activations at times. It added, that the company has been working to tailor the feature to make it more suitable to the customer’s environment. Citing that the importance of the users’ privacy, the tech giant said that one can “adjust how sensitive your Assistant is to the activation phrase (like ‘Hey Google’) through the Google Home app for smart speakers and smart displays.”
Additionally, one can turn off their cameras and mics, as well as delete the Google Assistant activity. “Just say something like, “Hey Google, delete this week’s activity”, or “Hey Google, delete my last conversation”, and Google Assistant will delete your Assistant activity,” the company said. This activity can be then be reviewed on ‘My Activity’ page. And in case, there are more people present in the environment, the user can activate a “Guest Mode” on Google Assistant, “no interactions will be saved to your account,” said Google.
A probe earlier found ‘no evidence’
Earlier, the cybersecurity specialists at Wandera carried out research and found that there was no evidence that the phones or apps could “secretly” listen to the conversations. The experiment Samsung Android phone and one Apple iPhone. Apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Chrome, Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon were granted permissions and were monitored for at least 30 minutes. James Mack, a systems engineer at Wandera told BBC that there was no constant recording of conversations as such happening contrary to the claims that the microphones in the mobiles are used to spy on chats.
