Watch Out! There Is A Hidden Feature On A Google Account That Can Secretly Record User Voices

Illustration of Google Assistants (photo: dock. google)

JAKARTA - Google stores audio recordings of web and app activity, along with verbal interactions with the Search, Assistant, and Map I applications, which are used 'to develop and improve its speech recognition technology'.

However, a recent tech expert shared a 'cheating code' which he claims will stop Google from trying to record your smartphone activity.

Users need to manage their Google account and not select options in 'Data and Privacy,' which a digital expert claims will block this tech company from accessing your microphone and camera.

Tech entrepreneur Jeffrey Castillo posted a video on Instagram, explaining that users can turn off this function by going to the Google app and clicking 'Manage your Google account.'

From there, select the 'Data and Privacy' tab and scroll down to 'History Settings' and select the 'Webs and App Activities' section, which you'll see has a blue tick mark.

When you click and scroll down, you should pay attention to that sound and audio activity settings have a blue tick - remove that checkmark to stop Google from listening.

The way Google keeps listening to conversations is the verbal version of the search engine, and every time it receives a 'Hey Google' command, it creates the same effect as opening a browser window.

When this sound and audio activity settings are turned off, the audio recording of the voice interaction with Google Search, Assistant, and Map will not be saved to your Google Account on Google servers, even if you're logged in," Google said. If you turn off this sound and audio activity settings, the previously saved audio recordings are not deleted. You can delete your audio recordings at any time.

Google has claimed that it is only listening to snippets of conversations to recognize programmed 'backwords', allowing them to respond to voice commands.

Although Google and other companies such as Amazon and Apple argue that their assistant devices including Alexa and Siri are only listening to orders and marketing efforts, it's actually still a major privacy issue.

If cybercriminals access your account or spy on your smart device, they can listen to phone recordings and steal information from Google's stored data.

Another step you can take to protect yourself includes verifying the app you downloaded to ensure that they come from official stores instead of third parties who can contain malware and review app permissions to turn off access to your phone's microphone.

Norton, a cybersecurity app, suggested that people delete their voice request history so that there are no memory banks from your conversations, use VPN to encrypt your information so it is not accessible to third parties, and keep your software up to date.