The technology superpower Google
recently avowed that its employees listen to customers' personal audio
recordings on Google Home smart speakers.
For allegedly improving the voice
recognition quality, language experts analyze "snippets" of users'
recordings.
Those recordings are used to further
develop the Google assistant's artificial intelligence system which is used in
the Android phones and Google Home smart speakers.
According to sources the company is a
statement cited their experts did transcribe a few of the anonymous recordings.
An investigation had been launched
after it was found out that some Dutch audio data had been leaked.
Per sources the technology giant also
said that in the process of developing technology of its AI products,
transcribing a small set of queries is critical for which they collaborate with
language experts around the world.
And it was one of these reviewers who
allegedly leaked the Dutch audio data hence violating Google's security
policies.
Actually, only 0.2% of all audio
snippets are reviewed by the language experts, which especially are never
associated with user accounts.
The investigation launched by the
Security and Privacy Response teams is Soon to reach some result and all possible
actions are being taken to deduct all chances of repetition.
Amazon also indulges in similar
actions of listening to recordings of customers in relation with Alexa, its
voice based assistant, mentioned a report.
Later Amazon admitted to the process
and mentioned that the number of recordings was pretty small and imperative to
train AI's responses.
There's a special provision for users
though. They can always delete their recordings linked to their account by way
of the Alexa Companion App.