
Google stores voice searches - apsec112
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-voice-search-records-and-stores-conversation-people-have-around-their-phones-but-files-can-be-a7059376.html
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notlisted
Nonsensical scaremongering. I've reviewed my history for several months. I use
voice a lot, especially in the car. My history only shows items where I've
used Google Now (button press) or used keyboard voice dictation (SMS, Waze,
etc. - also button-press). Easy to recognize, you even hear the beep at the
start.

I don't have "OK Google" set to "always on" on my phone. Anyone who sees
"strange" items may have that setting enabled.

PS Thanks OP, I wasn't aware of this overview page. Insightful. I appreciate
Google allows you to delete the samples if so inclined. Where is this page on
FB? ;-)

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tssva
I have always on enabled and reviewed my recordings. Same results as you.
Voice searches I initiated and voice keyboard input.

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arihant
For me it's only showing recordings of voice search I performed. Not a single
audio asynchronously recorded in two years. So not really "conversations
people have around phones." And I also use Android Wear and Chromebook, so I'm
probably more exposed to Google recording stuff.

When I'm performing voice search, it's obvious Google is listening. When I'm
using a third-party aid or service, it is obvious they keep records. This is
expected, and they let you delete them.

~~~
jerry40
To perform voice search you have to say "ok, google", so phone needs to listen
and to send to server every phrase it hears in order to check whether you said
"ok, google" or just ordered a beer in a pub. I'm just trying to theorise.

~~~
cbr
Reasons to think it's client side:

* Sending all microphone input to a remote server would be really bad for battery life and data usage.

* It still works even in airplane mode.

* On ChromeOS (which isn't Android, but may share the same code) their privacy whitepaper [1] says:
    
    
        If you opt-in to the feature, Chrome OS will listen for
        you to say "Ok Google" and then send the audio of the
        next thing you say, plus a few seconds before, to
        Google. Detection of the phrase "Ok Google" is performed
        locally on your computer, and the audio is only sent to
        Google after it detects "Ok Google"."
    

[1]
[https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/privacy/whitepaper.htm...](https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/privacy/whitepaper.html)

~~~
danieldk
_Sending all microphone input to a remote server would be really bad for
battery life and data usage.

It still works even in airplane mode._

I agree that they probably only send speech recorded after the activation
words. However, I don't arguments think your arguments hold up. Speech data
compresses exceptionally well and generally requires lower sampling rates
and/or resolutions. So, it's feasible to compress the speech signal (possibly
hardware-assisted), buffer it, and send it to the server at some regular
interval or when the user wakes the phone.

~~~
organsnyder
Yes, it is possible for them to be sending all recorded sounds (even if the
hotwords are not detected) to a remote server. However, as discussed above,
there would be no legitimate reason for doing so—it is demonstrably true that
the phone is able to recognize the hotwords even when a remote server is not
reachable.

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sugavaneshb
This is clearly for clickbait. Only your voice search commands are recorded
just like the history of what you searched using Google or your browser
history.

~~~
lucb1e
The article speaks in "may"s and "might"s a lot, I can't find one concrete
point outside the title, besides of course "after activation by speaking OK
Google your audio is sent to Google". It seems to be clickbait indeed.

~~~
CaptSpify
Could they be? Sure. Are they? We'd need some kind of evidence, not
speculation

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morsch
The discussions about Google (et al) tracking show a strikingly similar
pattern to discussions about clandestine government surveillance: a fairly
even split between people saying "that's not what they're doing" (they only
listen to explicitly triggered searches), "it's appalling that they're doing
this" (it's a privacy breach) and "we've known they're doing this for years"
(how else would they have such good speech recognition).

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r721
Personally I think turn voice search on/off checkbox should be much more
visible than it is now. Also I experienced at least one time when it was reset
by Android update or Google Search app update, so now I have to check it is
certainly off after every update.

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golergka
Has anyone actually saw a single non-search recording of a conversation on
that page?

~~~
JamesMcMinn
Almost all of mine are recordings of conversations I was having. Most of them
sound like my phone was in my pocket and are very muffled, and very few of
them have a transcript.

2 of the last 20 recordings are actually questions I asked. 5/20 have
transcripts, and the rest are partial recordings of conversations I've had
with no transcript.

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herbst
How is that new? Google is pretty much the only platform (i know of) that
barely has issues with crazy swiss german dialects. Bots do not magically
learn to understand this stuff.

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chdir
Spooky, because I'm conscious about privacy & regularly check that my tracking
is limited to only the things that I explicitly allow. Yet, somehow Google
managed to flip it on for a few weeks over the past 2 years.

As someone else pointed out, 'app updates' or 'adding a new device' resets
these settings. If I had one of those "always on" devices, it would have a lot
more conversations stored, some that don't even start with the hotword.

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wslh
If you are really paranoid, we've done a Python script for "sandboxing" the
audio use in Google Chrome:
[https://github.com/nektra/ChromeAudioSandbox](https://github.com/nektra/ChromeAudioSandbox)
it is a sample to show the capabilities of our open source instrumentation
lib.

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ikeboy
Anyone want to explain why Google requires you to turn on these recordings to
use voice search?

I want a setting where they automatically get deleted after processed, which
does not appear to exist.

~~~
tantalor
Turn off Voice & Audio Activity,

[https://www.google.com/settings/accounthistory/audio](https://www.google.com/settings/accounthistory/audio)

> When Voice & Audio Activity is off, voice searches will be stored using
> anonymous identifiers. This information won't be saved to your Google
> Account even if you're signed in.

[https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/6030020](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/6030020)

~~~
ikeboy
Huh. Pretty sure this wasn't available 6 months ago or so when I set up Google
Now. You needed to opt in to search and app history to use Now, which included
OK Google, or something.

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gizmodo59
Anyway to delete all the web searches? Seems like there is a way to select a
day's search but not all.

~~~
bcraven
Read the article:

To get rid of everything, you can press the “More” button, select “Delete
options” and then “Advanced” and click through.

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pigeons
duh.

