This archive report was first published on 15 July 2019.
July 15, 2019, 11:27:34 GMT +0300, Mirror
Google's popular smart speakers, Google Home, have been found to be listening to customer conversations, with the company admitting that its staff access some audio recordings.
According to Google, the technology giant uses language experts around the world to study a small number of audio 'snippets' from users, which helps with developing voice recognition and other technology in its Google Assistant artificial intelligence system.
However, an investigation was launched after some Dutch audio data was leaked, and Google revealed that an anonymous reviewer had violated its data security policies.
"We partner with language experts around the world to improve speech technology by transcribing a small set of queries - this work is critical to developing technology that powers products like the Google Assistant," Google said.
"Language experts only review around 0.2 per cent of all audio snippets, and these snippets are not associated with user accounts as part of the review process," the company added.
Google has promised to take action and conduct a full review of its safeguards to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
