OK Google: Where Do You Store Recordings Of My Commands?
Sure, our smartphones know a lot about who we are.
If you have an Android smartphone, you may not know that Google saves all of the voice commands you give it. They're archived online in your Google account.
Google says it keeps the audio search information to improve its voice recognition. Android users can opt out, which keeps your recordings anonymous. (Apple also stores voice commands collected by Siri users, though they're not so obviously associated to users.)
You can find your audio commands — as well as other histories, like all of the YouTube videos you've searched for and watched — by visiting your Google history page. You can disable this storage feature by managing your activity.
Otherwise, you can look through and listen to your Google voice searches — all those times you said "OK Google" and asked for directions, set alarms, dictated texts and searched for answers to the many questions that pop in your head throughout the day.
NPR producer Nick Fountain — who apparently has nothing to hide — shared his Google voice archive. Yes, it's an eerie reminder of how much is shared with Google. It also plays like a perfect distillation of life.
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Transcript
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And here's an advisory if you're the kind of person who talks to your smartphone - the phone may long remember what you say.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
People who give certain voice commands to their Android phones are being recorded. As many people know, you can ask a smartphone - like the one that's in my hand right now - to search for information, as I'm about to do. Here's an easy question - OK, Google, who's playing in the World Series?
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: The Mets lost to the Royals 7-1. They are playing the Royals tomorrow at 8:07 p.m.
INSKEEP: 8:07, very precise and convenient. The revelation here is that the audio of my voice, the search I just did is saved online. Log into your Google account and you can listen back to all your searches. Alex Hern wrote about this for The Guardian.
ALEX HERN: It's admirable transparency, but it's also rather disconcerting to be able to open up a page, scroll down three months, click a link and hear yourself asking your phone for directions to a supermarket.
MONTAGNE: Unless Android users opt out of this feature, there will be a record of months of your voice commands, which can paint a picture of an individual's interests.
INSKEEP: NPR producer and Android user Nick Fountain let us log into his account, and we quickly learned something about his life.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NICK FOUNTAIN, BYLINE: Set alarm for 2:45 a.m., set alarm for 3:45 a.m., set alarm for 2:45 a.m.
MONTAGNE: He once worked an early morning shift at MORNING EDITION, as you can tell. To see how accurate the Google-curated picture of Nick was, we asked two of his colleagues.
INSKEEP: Lauren Migaki and Rachel Ward guessed based on their knowledge of Nick Fountain what he would be asking his phone for information about, and then we matched their guesses with the reality.
LAUREN MIGAKI, BYLINE: Bicycles.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FOUNTAIN: Cantilever brakes picture. City bike map. Rosaryville Trail map.
RACHEL WARD, BYLINE: Kale recipes.
MIGAKI: Pickling.
WARD: Any sort of food preservation.
MIGAKI: Farmer's markets.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FOUNTAIN: New York Times cooking. Cucumber, tomato, red onion, poblanos, tomato calories, fish ball soup.
MONTAGNE: Apparently it's a pretty accurate picture. Nick Fountain did worry about his privacy, but not too much.
FOUNTAIN: And I think security is really key, but if something is private and it's going to make my life easier, I'm probably going to take the bait.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FOUNTAIN: WhoSampled, Steely Dan, De La Soul?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EYE KNOW")
DE LA SOUL: (Singing) Because (I know I love you better).... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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