
More information about our processes to safeguard speech data - arusahni
https://www.blog.google/products/assistant/more-information-about-our-processes-safeguard-speech-data/
======
Cynddl
> Audio snippets are not associated with user accounts as part of the review
> process.

This is a bold claim. The VRT journalist were able to re-identify few data
subjects and confirmed with them that their data was being listened by Google
contractors. "‘This is undeniably my own voice’, says one man, clearly
surprised." wrote the journalist.

> The Google Assistant only sends audio to Google after your device detects
> that you’re interacting with the Assistant.

Well, this is not what the contractor said [1]. The contractor heard private
conversations, sex scenes, and violence including "a woman who was in definite
distress".

[https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2019/07/10/google-employees-
are...](https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2019/07/10/google-employees-are-
eavesdropping-even-in-flemish-living-rooms/)

~~~
ru999gol
> The contractor heard private conversations, sex scenes, and violence
> including "a woman who was in definite distress".

I think this is a bit disingenuous and intentionally sensationalist, nobody
has any reason to believe that the Assistant is always listening or will just
trigger randomly or on demand by Google because they want to listen to
particular conversations, that doesn't even really make any sense. Also
various parties have access to the source code, so if it were malicious, there
can be evidence of it. That there isn't any evidence is important to mention
in this context.

In reality its just that it can randomly miss-classify "Ok Google", nothing
malicious about that, and obviously the purpose of the annotator is to look at
unrecognized samples, so obviously they are gonna frequently hear those cases,
that's sort of the whole point of this.

Maybe "well, duh, how do you think it knows your voice? magical pixie dust?"
is a bit of a cop out, but honestly there are two options, them doing what
they are doing right now, and not have Google Assistant.

~~~
steevdave
My experience with my Google home before I unplugged it is that it would
randomly kick on - even in relative silence, unless the clack of a keyboard
and maybe a fan whir could be misheard as "okay Google"

I would notice because it sat on my computer desk.

To be clear, I don't think it was nefarious that it would, just that I
realized I wasn't using it as much as I thought I would and decided to unplug
it.

------
seieste
Google’s argument is that the audio they store is non-private and non-
personally identifiable. So this statement doesn’t make sense:

> We just learned that one of these language reviewers has violated our data
> security policies by leaking confidential Dutch audio data.

Isn’t the whole point that the audio is supposed to be innocuous? “Hey google,
play Coldplay” or “Hey google, play Taylor Swift.” If that’s the only audio
that Google stores, then there should be no problem with leaking it to the
press.

But it isn’t, which is what the translator was trying to show in the first
place!

~~~
theanarcrist
I believe this is the article that they're referring to:
[https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2019/07/10/google-employees-
are...](https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2019/07/10/google-employees-are-
eavesdropping-even-in-flemish-living-rooms/) Basically after listening to a
bunch of audio, the reporters found some where the device had turned on but
recorded identifiable information. Also Google would consider any audio to be
confidential even is the material in it is innocuous.

------
malvosenior
> _Building products for everyone is a core part of our DNA at Google. We hold
> ourselves to high standards of privacy and security in product development,
> and hold our partners to these same standards_

I guess those standards don't include clearly letting end users know that
their data will be stored, shared and transcribed by 3rd parties (not that the
1st party in this case isn't bad enough).

The leak is not the problem here (and it's extremely disconcerting that
they're focusing on that). Their lack of communication with consumers is the
problem. This blog post makes things worse as far as I'm concerned.

------
daveguy
I will not use google home unless they remove the restriction to provide both
browser history and location on your google account / cell phone. When my
google home refused to work after disabling tracking features I unplugged it.

~~~
typenil
Yeah, the home bricking itself when you turn off those settings is
infuriating. The Google Assistant effectively bricks itself too.

As if they need your location and browsing history if they're gonna play that
song you asked for.

------
euphoria83
This response is no inadequate that it is almost laughable.

They claim that their experts can listen to a small number of recordings of
human speech directed at their devices. However, there is no telling what
people might be speaking to their Google devices. I don't use Google Home, but
given that it allows one to set reminders, etc., I would think that people
could be saying pretty sensitive things, including phone numbers, addresses,
credit card numbers, etc. which combined together can identify them uniquely
or at least allow those bits of information to be misused.

Also, embedded in the figure of 0.2%, mentioned for the percentage of spoken
interactions listened to, is the assumption that it is a very small number.
However, that number implies that 1 out of every 500 interactions are listened
to. For a family of 4 owning a Google Home, the number of spoken interactions
with it in a year would easily run into thousands. Therefore, the experts at
Google are listening to at least a handful of interactions every year for each
family. Given the speech-to-text state-of-the-art, if these recordings are
being converted to text and being stored, it would not be hard to group the
recorded interactions per family and derive some identifiable information
about them from it.

------
programmertote
I have both Home and Alexa in my house. If I give Google the full benefit of
the doubt and believe that they only record when I say 'Hey/OK Google', what
about Alexa? Does it send the recording to its server all the time or only
transfer them when I invoke its service?

~~~
jedberg
In both cases they only send what they heard after you used the wake word.

~~~
freehunter
I don't understand how this is a controversial claim that people refute when
it's so easy to test with something like Wireshark. If someone is paranoid
enough spread FUD on the Internet, they should be paranoid enough to actually
check with freely available tools.

~~~
Someone1234
If conspiracy theorists looked at facts, they wouldn't be conspiracy
theorists. The common denominator of people who claim that these devices are
always sending voice data, is that they have zero interest in learning how
they actually work, the information is widely and easily available.

~~~
ColanR
if by 'conspiracy theorist' you mean the literal definition, then you're
talking about anyone who theorizes regarding the existence of a conspiracy.
There's nothing wrong with that.

If by 'conspiracy theorist' you mean someone who suspects the government or
corporations of foul play, then don't forget about 'government surveilance',
one of the biggest conspiracy theories of the last several decades - until it
turned out to be true. (did you dismiss them as well, before snowden put hard
evidence behind the reasonable speculation?)

Either way, you shouldn't talk down to people who find minimal, available
evidence worthy of speculation. It's not conducive to reasonable discussion.

------
JaimeThompson
One would think that with all the very smart people that Google hires that
such issues would be thought about and measures put in place to make sure
stuff like this doesn't happen. Yet it seems to keep happening so I question
how hard they are really trying.

------
mikeash
There’s a conspicuous lack of anything like “we ask permission to save data at
setup time and don’t store anything unless the user clicks Yes.”

------
justforyou
How many of these incidents have to become public before some prosecutor
decides they can make the argument that people in the vicinity of digital
assistants no longer have a "reasonable expectation of privacy."

------
arusahni
Previous HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20402070](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20402070)

~~~
jedberg
That was the discussion about the actual incident, not Google's response.

------
jraph
I'd love to see "An update on Google Assistant".

