• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Jobs
  • Career
    • Cyber Security Training
    • Work from Home
    • Cyber Security Analyst
    • Remote Work – Six Ways to Keep Your Data Safe When Working Remotely
  • Field Guide
  • Newsletter Signup
  • Deals
  • News
AskCyberSecurity.com

AskCyberSecurity.com

Cyber Security News & Information

  • Home
  • Data Privacy
    • Gamers
    • Government Cyber Security
      • Legislation
      • Standards
        • What are the risks of computer security?
        • Medical Cyber Security
    • Social Media
  • Security
    • Data Breaches
    • Scams
      • Identity theft
    • Malware
      • Ransomware
  • Software
    • Apps
    • Web Browsers
  • Glossary
    • Cyber Security Acronyms
  • About Ask Cyber Security
    • Authors
    • Contact Us
  • VPN
    • How Do I Know If My VPN is Working?
    • Best Free VPN iPhone
    • Why Use a VPN?
    • NordVPN vs IPVanish
    • Private Internet Access Download
    • Best VPN for Streaming
      • TikTok VPN
    • VPN Porn
    • Computer Security Software – What You Really Need
  • Tutorials
AskCyber Home » News » data privacy » Is Google Recording My Conversations?

Is Google Recording My Conversations?

2018-10-09 by Michelle Dvorak

Google Is Listening and Recording Conversations. Here’s How to Delete the Files

Have you ever thought that Google and Facebook are eavesdropping on your conversations? If you’re like me, you’ve had a phone or in-person conversation and then a short time later, noticed there are advertisements related to something you spoke about. The last instance was when I started seeing adverts for the American Chemical Society Memberships after I started talking to my University daughter about her Organic Chemistry classes.

Well, we’re not just paranoid. Although Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg denied before Congress this past spring that Facebook does not listen in on conversations, it turns out that some Google services do. I found my recordings saved online in my Google account.If you want to jump straight to it this is where you can listen to the recordings of your voice. Log into your Google account and go to https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity?restrict=vaa&hl=en

I was in the middle of writing a blog post about Google privacy settings and stumbled across the voice services section of my Google account. There under Voice & Audio Activity in my privacy settings I found recordings of my voice sometimes talking to my phone and sometimes not dating back a few years. Some of the recordings made sense, like when I was driving and asking Google to locate and dial a phone number. This occurs when I say “Okay Google” to my phone and it opens Google Assistant to fulfill my request. Other times, the recordings made no sense to me, like when I was singing along with TSwizzle and was recorded. Other times, I recorded my frustration with my Google app and was giving my phone a few Spanish commands before resorting to Harry Potter vernacular.

The part I don’t care for is the Google recorded and saved these sounds bytes to my Google account rather than just using them in the moment to retrieve what I needed and then discarding them. Voice recordings made from my phone are available on my laptop.

Why is Google Recording Me?

According to the services section under my account: “Records your voice and audio on Google services to improve speech recognition, like when you say, “Ok Google” to do a voice search.” Recording also occurs when a user taps to microphone icon.I scrolled and scrolled throgh my voice recordsings. They go back for years. I don’t know how many there are, the list never ended.

That’s fine, but I don’t want these recording s saved for all of perpetuity.

Regardless of the source, I’m creeped out by that fact that Google recorded and stored my voice. I understand the listening part. In some of the recordings I was legitimately commanding Google to do something for me and therefore it needed to listen. But why it needs to be saved for years on end? I don’t know. I don’t like it

How to Stop Google from Recording Your Conversations and Storing Them

You can stop Google from saving your conversations to your Google account. Making this change will cause Google assistant not to work. And herein lies my issue with Google privacy settings. Why can’t Google assistant work by listening to my command then discard it when it’s done? Why does it have to save it online? The same goes with location sharing. If I want to share my location with one person, a lot of Google tracking is involved and gain my data is stored.

You must be logged into your Google account via Gmail login, YouTube, maps or other Google service.

  1. Go to the Privacy Policy section of your Google account https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en#infochoices This is also where you go to shut off your Google location tracking
  2. Scroll down to the Managing, reviewing, and updating your information section and select Activity Controls
    https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols
  3. Scroll down past Location History (I address that in another post) or go to Voice & Audio Activity https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity?restrict=vaa&hl=en
  4. Listen to (if you want to) and delete all of the audio files here
  5. To shut off the voice recording go to https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols/audio and move the slider to off

Filed Under: data privacy Tagged With: Google, Google assistant

About Michelle Dvorak

Michelle writes about cyber security, data privacy focusing on social media privacy as well as how to protect your IoT devices. She has worked in internet technology for over 20 years and owns METRONY, LLC. Michelle earned a B.S. in Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Michelle published a guide to Cyber Security for Business Travelers


LinkedInTwitterFacebook

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to Our Free Newsletter

We Don't Share or Sell Your Info

Web Browsers

Where Are My Saved Passwords in Chrome?

Google Removes 70 Malicious Browser Add-ons from Chrome Web Store

Firefox 75 Reports Your Browser Settings to Mozilla

511 Tactical

WHAT TO SHOP NOW

Shop

Safeguard Your Money with a VPN

Beat the Stock Market! - Get Rule Breakers!

Malwarebytes Anti-Virus is On Sale!

Shop Kaspersky Anti-Virus

Cyber Security Field Guide

Computer Security While TravelingGet Our Cyber Security Field Guide - Available on Amazon!

Recent Posts

Adult Video Streaming Site Data Breach Exposes 2M Customers

Fake eBay Notification Scam Steals Big Money

Principal Security Consultant – AWS

NJCCIC Announces Alice in Cyberspace 2021

Email Service Cuts Off Gun Rights Nonprofit

Categories

Cyber Security News

Fake eBay Notification Scam Steals Big Money

… [Read More...] about Fake eBay Notification Scam Steals Big Money

NJCCIC Announces Alice in Cyberspace 2021

… [Read More...] about NJCCIC Announces Alice in Cyberspace 2021

PayPal Phishing Scam Steals Accounts

… [Read More...] about PayPal Phishing Scam Steals Accounts

Gun Forum Booted by Domain Registrar

… [Read More...] about Gun Forum Booted by Domain Registrar

More Cyber Security News

Tags

amazon Android Apple bitcoin Career China chrome CISA credit card Cyber Attack Cyber security Data Breach data privacy DHS Equifax Facebook FBI Firefox FTC games GDPR Google Government hack hacker identity theft iPhone Iran IRS malware Microsoft North Korea PayPal phishing phishing email ransomware Russia scam smartphone TikTok tutorial VPN web browser WhatsApp WiFi

Government

FTC Releases Cyber Threat Video Playlist

Malware Found on US Government Funded Phones

UK NCA Reaches Out to Youth to Deter Cybercrimes

Texas DOT Hit by Ransomware Attack

More Posts from this Category

Footer

Menu

  • Home
  • About
  • Authors
  • News
  • Newsletter Signup
  • PRIVACY POLICY

Search

Why Use a VPN?

NordVPN vs IPVanish VPN Review

NAVIGATION

  • Data Breaches
  • Data Privacy
  • Gamers
  • Scams
  • Malware

MEMBER NJCCIC

New Jersey Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Cell

STAY CONNECTED

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Copyright © 2021 · AskCyberSecurity.com · METRONY, LLC

Go to mobile version