Google has admitted to allowing some of its employees to listen to its customer’s audio recordings. This was first reported by Belgian site VRT, then relayed by La Presse. Some of the data may also have been used improperly, the tech giant admitted.
The audio, recorded by Google Home devices, is used to help train Google’s voice recognition software across multiple languages and dialects. In some cases, the audio included personal information, such as people talking about their love lives or revealing personal information such as their home address.
Google also admitted that it’s currently investigating an incident in which audio from a Google Home device was leaked by an employee who violated confidentiality policies.
This is scary stuff, especially in a day & age where more and more people are openly wondering whether tech giants are collecting information about them without their knowledge.
As a reminder, it is possible to deactivate Google’s permissions to store your voice recordings from Google Home.