How Google Is Secretly Recording YOU Through Your Mobile, Monitoring Millions Of Conversations

The Sun ^ | 08/22/17 | Margi Murphy

[Enlightened1]

DID you know that Google has been recording you without your knowledge?

The technology giant has effectively turned millions of its users' smartphones into listening devices that can capture intimate conversations - even when they aren't in the room.

If you own an Android phone, it's likely that you've used Google's Assistant, which is similar to Apple's Siri.

Google says it only turns on and begins recording when you utter the words "OK Google".

But a Sun investigation has found that the virtual assistant is a little hard of hearing.

In some cases, just saying "OK" in conversation prompted it to switch on your phone and record around 20 seconds of audio.

It regularly switches on the microphone as you go about your day-to-day activities, none the wiser.

Once Google is done recording, it uploads the audio files to its computer servers - often dubbed "the cloud".

These files are accessible from absolutely anywhere in the world - as long as you have an internet connection.

That means any device that is signed into your personal Gmail or Google account can access the library of your deepest, darkest secrets.

So if you're on a laptop right now and signed into Gmail - you could have a listen.

[Phlap]

As I said, good luck.

[Slyfox]

When Clinton was in office my daughter and I would talk on the phone and one of us would say: "Clinton Bombing" and the other would answer: "Clinton Bombing."

Just in case someone was listening.

During Obama's regime we changed it to: "Obama Bombing" followed by a nice little discussion of the contents of extremely full baby diapers.

And we would laugh and laugh.

[SgtHooper]

Anyone who does not know this by now, is asleep at the wheel. Even networked TVs do this as well as game boxes, etc. And anyone who thinks the IoT (Internet of Things) is a great idea, is just plain stupid.

[entropy12]

You are correct. I would venture a guess that 90% of the data collected is never going to be used. But since it costs so little to store millions and millions of bytes of data, they just store everything.