Google caught secretly recording conversations through your mobile device

Google has allegedly been tapping into Android users’ mobile devices to secretly record private conversations, The Sun reported online.

According to the report, the technology giant’s Google Assistant — which works in the same manner as Apple’s Siri — purportedly records conversations without the users knowing. Google has insisted that its new virtual assistant only switches on and commences recording when users say “OK Google.”

“We only process voice searches after the phone believes the hot word ‘OK Google’ is detected. Audio snippets are used by Google to improve the quality of speech recognition across Search…[and] improving speech recognition against all Google products that use your voice,” a company spokesperson said.

However, an investigation carried out by the British newspaper showed that Google’s audio assistant jams up in some instances. The report noted that in some cases, just saying “Ok” in a random conversation will prompt the system to switch the phone on and record about 20 seconds of audio.

The system was also found to switch the microphone on as users go about their usual activities day-in and day-out. Once the virtual assistant finishes recording, the system uploads the audio files to its computer servers often referred to as “the cloud.”

According to the report, these audio files can be accessed anywhere in the world as long as internet connection is available. This means that any device that is signed into a user’s personal Gmail or Google account can access these files and allow the user to listen to the recordings.

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