Your smartphone may be listening to more than you think.
How your privacy is affected by digital assistants
Google is facing a lawsuit accusing it of recording conversations of people who accidentally activate the Voice Assistant on their phones, in a move experts say is a potential privacy nightmare for smart assistants.
“Think of voice assistants as members of your household, with one big difference: Unlike other living members of your household, these assistants are constantly paying attention to you and they don’t forget about you,” Pankaj Srivastava, a privacy expert and CEO of management consultancy PracticalSpeak, said in an email interview. “What could possibly go wrong?”
A proposed class-action lawsuit alleges that Google and parent company Alphabet Inc. violated privacy laws. Google Assistant responds to phrases like "Hey Google" or "OK Google." But the plaintiffs said Google had no right to use their conversations for targeted advertising when Google Assistant misinterpreted what they said to activate its software.
