Google suspended the evaluation of voice assistants in Europe

A Google spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday that after the leaked recordings in the Dutch, the company suspended evaluation of the recordings collected by the Google Assistant virtual assistant in the European Union. The company admitted in July that the partner responsible for analyzing the smart assistant voice clips leaked data. CNBC reported earlier that more than 1,000 private conversations were sent to the Belgian news media, adding that some revealed sensitive information such as medical conditions and customer addresses.

“Google Assistant experience at T-Mobile” by Stuart Fingerhut, Karen Tan Eap, Daniel Alajajian, Miriam Silva is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

“Shortly after we learned about the leaking of confidential Dutch audio data, we paused language reviews of the Assistant to investigate,” the spokeswoman said. The company performs reviews for only around 0.2% of all audio clips, she added. The matter is at a time when the public and the government are paying more and more attention to data privacy measures, forcing Silicon Valley companies to increase transparency.

Legislators in the US and elsewhere are weighing the proposals and may limit how Google, Facebook, and other Internet companies track users and distribute information. It is reported that Google’s suspension of the evaluation will last at least three months.