Google Stores Audio Files of All Your “OK Google” Requests – and You Can Listen to Them Online

It’s no secret that Google uses Android to track a lot of information about users. However, many users are unaware that Google actually saves audio files for all of your “OK Google” commands. That’s right: every time you speak to your Google Assistant app, Google doesn’t just listen and respond to your request. Google also records that audio file and then saves it to its database. Don’t believe me? You can listen to your audio files today – seriously. It’s as easy as going to the following page: https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity Press Ctrl+F and look for “Voice”, then click on the Voice & Audio subheading. You’ll be able to see all of the instances where Google has recorded your voice. Not only can you see when and at what times your voice was recorded – but you can listen to an audio file from that moment. I don’t know about you, but this audio data goes back months on my page. Sure, I can delete all of this data – but Google will just start collecting it again as soon as its Google Assistant is used. As far as we can tell, there’s no way to disable Google Assistant’s ability to record and save your audio file – the only way to avoid it is to stop using Google Assistant entirely.

Google May Listen to You More Than You Think

Meanwhile, a separate report from The Sun showed that Google may be more attentive than you think. Specifically, The Sun found that Google silently activated its microphone when it heard anything remotely resembling “OK Google”. The Sun’s research team would say something like, “OK go for it”, for example, and found that Google’s Assistant started recorded ambient background noise. The end result was that their My Activity page on Google was filled with ambient conversations that were unrelated to “OK Google” commands. In other words, Google may have recorded you even when you weren’t speaking to your phone – like when you were having a private conversation. Does it make you uncomfortable to know that Google stores audio files of your voice commands? Or are you totally cool with it? Let us know in the comments below.