Google tells Parliament IT Panel that its employees listen to some Ok Google queries

Google representatives on Tuesday told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology that Google employees listen to some recordings of conversations between users and Google Assistant.

While it is fairly well-known that Google employees listen to a portion of conversations that users have with Google Assistant after invoking OK Google hotword, this is the first time the company has acknowledged it in front of Indian officials.

Panel sources told India Today that Google officials deposing before the Parliament Committee acknowledged listening to some recorded conversations that users carried out with Google Assistant after saying OK Google.

Sources said that in response to a specific question from BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, the Google team admitted that sometimes audio was recorded by the Google Assistant on a smartphone or smart speaker even when a user had not triggered the AI by saying Ok Google.

Google had earlier in 2019 explained that its employees occasionally listened to the recordings of conversations carried out by users with its virtual assistant. In a blog post, Google had said that for almost 0.2 per cent of audio recordings done after users had opted in for Voice & Audio Activity (VAA) while setting up the Google Assistant, the company allowed human review of the recordings.

"We take a number of precautions to protect data during the human review process-audio snippets are never associated with any user accounts and language experts only listen to a small set of queries (around 0.2 per cent of all user audio snippets), only from users with VAA turned on," Google noted at that time.

The company also said that users could review their audio activity and the option to delete any conversation that Google Assistant recorded, whether accidentally or deliberately.

In its deposition before the Parliament Panel, the Google team said that in the audio recording, the sensitive information was not heard. The company said that only general conversations were recorded and heard, though it did not provide any clarification on how it differentiated between sensitive and non-sensitive information.

The panel, headed by Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor, believes that the recording of Google Assistant conversations is a breach of privacy. The Panel's final report will make recommendations to the government on it.

According to sources, the Panel members have also told tech companies, including Google, to fix any loopholes in their existing data protection mechanisms, and safeguard the data and privacy of Indian users.

In the deposition, Facebook was represented by its country public policy director Shivnath Thukral and general counsel Namrata Singh while Google was represented by its country head (government affairs and public policy) Aman Jain and legal director Gitanjali Duggal.

A member of the panel said, "The admission by Google explains why lakhs of users right after asking Google assistant about hotels in a city start getting messages on their accounts on different platforms about deals and offers."

Although, the observation runs contrary to previous claims made by Google. The company had earlier said that the data recordings are only a minuscule portion of all conversations its users carry out with its virtual assistant and that the recordings are only used so that "language experts can listen to and transcribe audio data from the Google Assistant to help improve speech technology for different languages."

Another Panel member said: "In its terms and conditions, Google states clearly that audio recordings between users and their Google smart speakers and Google Assistant devices are recorded and stored. But the terms do not mention that its employees can listen to excerpts from these recordings. Also, Google, in its privacy policy, says that it will share personal information outside of Google when it has users consent. This is a serious breach of user privacy."

A senior official from MEITY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) said, "The government is looking into the issue of companies like Google not deleting the stored data as a rule and keeping the transcripts until a user manually deletes the information."

On Tuesday, the social media platforms, who have challenged the IT Rules that came into effect from May 26 in courts, found the panel members, irrespective of their political parties, uniting to direct the big tech companies to comply with the new rules.

Earlier, Tharoor had denied the demand of the tech company officials to depose virtually, reportedly noting that panel proceedings wouldn't be held virtually and that they would have to appear in person.

Sources also said that Tharoor expressed concerns about the privacy of women users on social media platforms.

Tharoor, who heads the Panel, is also said to have fired a letter to Twitter, seeking explanation on temporary locking of two accounts. The Twitter accounts of Tharoor and India's IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad were briefly locked a few days ago. Later it emerged that the accounts were locked because copyrighted material was shared from them and that Sony Entertainment had sent a DMCA notice to Twitter through the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reporting the tweets that allegedly contained copyrighted songs.