
How to listen to (and delete) everything you've ever said to Google - nkurz
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/13/google-voice-activity-listen-delete-recordings
======
xirdstl
The first thing the article says is that users are probably aware Google
stores all of these recordings. I, for one, was not aware. Am I really in the
minority?

~~~
cantrevealname
I was surprised and dismayed to discover that Skype does something similar.

Skype stores your voice mails and video messages forever[1]. This is something
that they started doing 2-3 years ago and few people seem to be aware of it.
Unlike Google, they don't provide _any_ way to delete them.

[1] Details: Clicking on Preferences -> Privacy -> Delete history (OS X) or
Options -> Privacy Settings -> Clear history (Windows) pretends to delete the
voice/video messages but it merely hides them from your view. If you re-
install Skype on the same computer or run Skype on a different computer, all
those "deleted" voice mails and video messages re-appear.

~~~
newjersey
That is not good. The least they could do is be explicit and clarify you're
deleting the local copy (which I hope is what they're doing).

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stvswn
Do people generally like that this UI exists, or not?

To everyone who says "wow that's creepy, I wish I had known, God knows what
else they have-" do you feel better or worse seeing this UI available, and
having the option to turn off services or remove specific records?

I'm honestly curious, because Google is obviously trying to react to the
"transparency" criticism. I also wonder who would be offended by a UI that
gives you a method to stop using the services you find creepy. Seriously, you
can opt out, it explains how pretty easily.

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rvijapurapu
Google knowing a bit about me & my voice is little scary, but hearing my 8yr
old daughter ask about the cosmos & other scientific questions on Google, is
to me, priceless.

~~~
akiselev
Any chance you are willing to share the content of some of those questions
(not the recording, just the questions)?

I've seen little kids ask me and other adults about what a cordless phone was
(even "why does it have so many buttons?" from the young owner of an iPhone
who failed to grasp the idea of a screen without touch input), why they can't
interact with the cover of a magazine by poking at it, and why we can't just
take pictures of bacteria with a smartphone camera instead of looking through
a microscope. I'm curious what a child would ask Google and what the answers
would be given the vastly different expectations each generation has of every
day technology.

I have really bad experiences with voice recognition going all the way back to
early Dragon Naturally Speaking versions and I can't imagine asking google
voice search a question so instead I always just text search for relevant
topics or go on the science exhanges/forums.

~~~
rvijapurapu
@akiselv: Some of the questions my daughter has asked:

> how does an earthquake happen > when was the first Christchurch earthquake >
> what are the well known constellations > how big is cat VY Canis Majoris >
> what is the biggest star > how old is Pluto > what is Fusion > how was the
> sun formed

This is from one session.

~~~
shostack
And your daughter is only 8? Damn, nice job on the parenting. Might I ask what
you've done as a parent to help get her to the point where she's asking these
sorts of questions?

~~~
rvijapurapu
Early on I did show her how to use the Google Now to ask questions - like how
far is the Moon & like. That's about all the parenting I have done in this
regard. She has been watching way too many How Stuff Works videos lately - I
want to see if that spills over into her being more curious about things.

~~~
shostack
Very cool. Have you by any chance considered the Amazon Echo or teaching her
how to use Wolfram Alpha?

~~~
rvijapurapu
I don't own the Echo, might be something I would consider buying at some
point.

I do have access to WolframAlpha but haven't yet taught her how to use it -
maybe it's a bit early for her, I'll give it a go.

------
ikurei
Other comments say that these recordings are unlinked from your account after
some time (6 months for apple) or you turn this feature off. In a previous HN
[1] post we learned that third parties can listen to these anonymized
recordings to improve the system, and there are actual humans listening to
it...

What just jumped to my mind is that, leaving aside how unique your voice can
be, or how identifiable your behaviour and patterns are (hint: a lot), there
are a lot of searches that reveal unmistakable and straight personal info.
What about:

"Hey phone, text [name of my special other] [naughty and quirky stuff]"

I wouldn't care too much if someone listened to me ask for a Starbucks, but I
certainly don't want anyone to listen to that.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9101875](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9101875)

~~~
Sven7
I dont like it either but most of this stuff already exists with them in
email, texts, im's etc.

------
Laaw
Playing with Maps one evening led me to find that at one point I had enabled
some kind of tracking, and _every single day_ of my movement was graphed in
Maps. Where I went and how long I was there was recorded by Google.

I should do something with this data...

~~~
mafuyu
There's a neat site where you can turn your location data into a heatmap:
[https://theopolis.me/location-history-
visualizer/](https://theopolis.me/location-history-visualizer/)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Google's version:
[https://www.google.com/maps/timeline](https://www.google.com/maps/timeline)

~~~
cproctor
I just had a look at the information Google has been keeping on me, and
noticed that when I visited the visitor center for Zion National Park earlier
this year, there was a photo of my car's license plate was associated with the
event. Any ideas what's going on here?

~~~
toomuchtodo
If the photo was taken with an Android device, and uploaded to Google Photos,
most likely Google associated your location with the GPS coordinates in the
EXIF data of the photo.

I was at Zion a few weeks ago, and did not see any equipment on the road or in
the parking lot that was automatically capturing license plate data, if that's
what you're asking.

------
joosters
The title is misleading; as the article reveals, you can't delete the
recordings, all you can do is ask Google to not tie them to your identity.
(and hope that they actually do that...)

~~~
voyou
You can delete them (or at least, request that Google delete them); either by
selecting the checkbox next to each recording, or by choosing "Delete options"
from the vertical-line-of-three-dots icon in the top right. What it looks like
you can't do is ask Google not to keep anonymized recordings of voice searches
etc that you make in the future.

~~~
joosters
Sorry, didn't realise that. I did visit the page but the checkboxes weren't
there as I had no recordings.

~~~
btian
So you have no recordings, and you claim Google doesn't allow you to delete
recordings...

I guess you're technically right, Google doesn't let you delete things that
don't exist.

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Animats
_" Turning voice Activity off doesn’t stop Google storing your recordings, but
it means they get kept with an anonymous identifier, and can’t be easily
linked back to your account."_

"Off" is the new "on". The Direct Marketing Association's definition of "not
tracking" is similar.

------
Balgair
Hmmm, all off as it was. Thanks past me for doing that.

~~~
junto
Mine all say "paused" under "Activity Controls" [1]

Out of interest, why does Google use the term "paused" rather than "off"?

It makes me suspect that they are still saving it, but just hiding the fact
that they are doing so from me. Or am I just paranoid?

Update:

The end of the article outlines this a bit better:

    
    
      Turning voice Activity off doesn’t stop Google storing
      your recordings, but it means they get kept with an 
      anonymous identifier, and can’t be easily linked back to 
      your account. If you want to stop Google recording your 
      voice at all, well, there’s only one solution: stop 
      talking to it.
    

[1]
[https://www.google.com/settings/accounthistory?continue=http...](https://www.google.com/settings/accounthistory?continue=https://history.google.com/history/audio%3Futm_source%3Dsidenav)

~~~
scott_karana
I suspect a bit of it is psychology, too. If it's "Paused", it implies that
it's usual to be enabled, both as peer pressure and for features/usability.

------
steve371
"This call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurances or training
purpose. Your information is confidential and protected by the law." Call
centers do that long time ago. And our voices are stored and used globally. I
wish they have a delete button too.

------
mindcrash
Delete? There's this thing called soft-deletes. Things which get stored on
Google (and Facebook for that matter) will never ever be deleted when you, the
person which added the content, decides to do this.

They can ofcourse, when they decide to free up storage space by actually
deleting stuff which was already soft-deleted -- but given the price per
gigabyte these days I bet this will never ever happen...

------
mkhalil
I'm more surprised they managed to even get Material-UI to pages like this.
Their UI/UX team is doing something right.

------
callesgg
While i knew that google saves my location, i have explicitly told it i can.
That fucking map scared my god.

Not sure how it got all those locations some of them makes sense i used google
maps in my iphone or i caried my Android tablet with me.

Some of them seams to be based on to me unknown sources. I do not like being
tracked when i dont know how it is done.

------
swampthinker
Decided to listen to some of my recordings. What seemed off to me was that it
also records myself saying "OK Google". Meaning that the mic is always on. Do
they store audio outside of me calling for Google?

~~~
hiddencost
They buffer the audio in a ring buffer constantly, so that the audio can be
checked for a wake word. If the wake woRd triggers, then they send the
contents of the buffer. The buffer shouldn't be super big. (E.g., one or two
seconds). They use it to train their wake word model.

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ocdtrekkie
As someone generally critical and untrusting of Google, I assumed if you asked
Google to delete your voice recordings, they actually did delete it. Kinda
amazed that they don't.

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donatj
I did not know they were keeping this crap, but it's kind of neat I can hear
myself getting directions to the bakery on my wedding day to pick up the cake
(donuts).

------
martin-adams
Now if only they would let me see all my past Google searches and known web
sites they think I've visited, then that would be interesting.

~~~
maaku
[https://history.google.com/history](https://history.google.com/history)

------
jvolkman
Amazon does the same thing with Echo recordings.

~~~
scott_karana
Link?

~~~
sib
Amazon's pretty clear about handling / management of Echo/Alexa voice data.

FAQ:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201602230)

View Dialog History:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201602040)

~~~
scott_karana
Thank you! :-)

------
tianlins
One way to think about this is you record a piece of voice and put it in
Google drive. Sounds less creepy to me.

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tefo-mohapi
Thanks for this. Good to know.

------
ByronicHero
QuestionsIAskMyPhoneWhileDrunk.ogg

------
jlarocco
Gees, Google is creepy.

This might be the tipping point that makes me finish my switch off Google and
move my email to something else.

Fortunately, I haven't used this, but God only knows what else they're saving
forever that I haven't managed to avoid or turn off.

