Google to pause listening to EU voice recordings

According to the reports, Google will temporarily pause listening to voice recordings in the EU during the investigating period. From the past few months, Google’s voice assistant service is facing many criticisms for its data privacy policies.

Recently, Google had confirmed that some of its employees and third party contractors leaked private Dutch conversations. Google also agreed that more than 1,000 files had been leaked, including recordings. There were many such instances where users accidentally triggered Google's software.

German regulators raised many concerns on data security and its protection policies regarding these issues. According to German regulators, Google has now agreed to stop listening and transcribing Google Assistant recordings for three months in Europe.

The German data protection commissioner said, “The use of automatic speech assistants from providers such as Google, Amazon and Apple is proving to be highly risky for the privacy of those affected and the country was investigating after reports that contractors listen to audio captured by Google’s AI-powered Assistant to improve speech recognition.”

In response, one of the Google’s spokesperson said that the company is in touch with the Hamburg data protection authority and are assessing how to conduct audio reviews and help its users understand how data is used.