Some say Google is the next Skynet and some say Google is the future that could harm us. We can’t say either is the truth, but we feel, Google is really scary sometimes. A few days ago, more than 1000 Google Assistant recordings have been leaked to a Belgian news organization.
Google listen to your conversations
Do you ever know that Google listens to all your recordings? It hires a human to listen to those recordings from both the Google Home and Google Assistant. These people will be hearing all your recordings and then deliver advertisements tailored to it. Imagine you are asking Google something very personal and a person on the other side is listening to it.
This is not the first time Google hires a human to listen and review voice recordings. Companies such as Apple and Amazon also hires human in order to train the technology behind the voice assistant. According to Gizmodo, humans engagement is still necessary for the voice assistants to work. For Google case, one of the people who work as a subcontractor snets all those recordings to VRT News in Belgium. The worst part is, that person even let the news journalist look at the recording software. At this moment, those recordings are not leaked to the hackers, government or any other Belgian news organizations.
During last week Friday, Google has given its official statement regarding this matter.
WE JUST LEARNED THAT ONE OF THESE LANGUAGE REVIEWERS HAS VIOLATED OUR DATA SECURITY POLICIES BY LEAKING CONFIDENTIAL DUTCH AUDIO DATA. OUR SECURITY AND PRIVACY RESPONSE TEAMS HAVE BEEN ACTIVATED ON THIS ISSUE, ARE INVESTIGATING, AND WE WILL TAKE ACTION. WE ARE CONDUCTING A FULL REVIEW OF OUR SAFEGUARDS IN THIS SPACE TO PREVENT MISCONDUCT LIKE THIS FROM HAPPENING AGAIN.
In conclusion, probably next time, most of you might stop using your Google Assistant again. This is the future we have to face it no matter what. Google says 0.2 percent of the voice recordings are being sent to the human reviewers. When we say 0.2 percent sounds small but if you think about it there are more than 1 billion devices which can use the Google Assistant. That’s 2 million recordings are being listened to by humans.
