Unlike Children And Spouses, Google Remembers EVERYTHING You Say (Which Might Not Always Be A Good Thing)
Let’s suppose you have asked Google a few questions you are not particularly proud of, such as, ‘Ok, Google, what exactly is the Electoral College?” or “How does a bill become law?” Unless you have disabled this feature, every time you do a voice search, Google records it for posterity and possible future document requests. You may not be aware that Google lets you hear (and delete) these recordings. Here’s how: go to Google’s Voice and Audio Activity page to delete the recordings individually or select DELETE ACTIVITY BY to delete by date or topic. While you’re at it, you can also tell Google not to record those voice searches in the first place, to stop tracking every web page you surf, to stop monitoring and recording every single location you physically visit, and to stop memorializing every single YouTube search you run or video you watch, all from this page. While the fact that Google records these types of audio searches might make certain Android users nervous, having the recordings available for users to listen to and delete is more transparent than similar services like Siri (which stores your data for up to two years, unless you turn off the service).
Check out our series, Privacy Perils, to learn what steps you can take to guard your personal and company data. For more information about this topic and other cyber security concerns, please contact a member of our Privacy & Data Security team.