There’s a chance Google records all your conversations to your Google Home permanently just as Alexa. However, the company has lately changed the settings from storing the recordings but this change affects people who recently started using the Google Home not old users.
Google Home Records What You Say
By default, the Google Home doesn’t do anything until it hears a wake word which is either “Hey Google” or “OK Google”. But after it hears the wake word it sends everything you say after to Google servers for analysis. Of course, Google needs to store the recordings for some time, however they may store it permanently.
Since the permanent storing of recordings is no longer what the Google Home does anymore, the company now requires that a user sign up for sending their voice recordings to the company. This change as has been noted above already only applies to users who only recently acquired the Google Home not users who have been using the device prior to this time. Old users therefore have to turn the permanent recording of their statements off.
For the sake of avoiding panic, the reason why companies keep data on its users is because AI is not particularly intelligent per se, and no matter how voice assistants have developed, they haven’t quite gotten there yet. Companies such as Google has its employees listen to commands you give and compare them to what the voice assistants think they heard and also the response it gave. This way, Google makes certain improvements to their service delivery and also what users want done that cannot be done.
Getting the Google assistant improved is a huge deal, however, switching its default setting of permanent recording from opt-out to opt-in is an even better one. At this point, Google has made an advancement that’s yet to be made by Amazon as with Alexa, the recording is permanent and users can’t opt out.
Stopping Google from Collecting your Voice Recordings
For people already making use of the Google Home before this change was made, you now have the ability to get Google to stop collecting recordings of things you say. This is a pretty simple thing to do actually.
To do this:
- Head over to Google’s Activity Controls website. Scroll to “Voice & Audio Activity”. Once there, toggle the setting off. You will get a caution saying that Google devices may not understand it when you say “Hey Google”. Ignore the message because it could be an old caution.
- Next, click the “Pause” option at the bottom of the cautionary message.
You must perform the same operation with every Google account connected to your Google Home. Note that the setting holds for any device you can say “Hey Google” to, your phone, Nest Home Hub (or Google Home Hub), or Lenovo smart display.
Deleting all Your Voice Recordings
- Still on the Activity Controls website, click on “Manage Activity”.
- In the upper left corner of the page, click on “Delete activity by”.
- Select the recordings you want deleted. If you want everything deleted, click the box under “Delete by Date” then select “All Time”.
- Lastly, to delete the recordings, click “Delete”
