Accidentally eavesdropping - AI edition

Good afternoon and welcome back to another post from ToBeSecured. I’ve noticed more people are paying attention to what is happening in the world of technology and how it is affecting their privacy. It’s important to know who is collecting information about you or are how they are utilizing data that their systems are already generating. Read and have an understanding of the privacy laws that are outlined in anything you purchase nowadays.

On today’s post we will be discussing how human workers are listening to recordings from AI assistants. AI are the initials for artificial intelligence which is one of the leading factors of technology; it refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic our actions. In the new era of AI, businesses can thrive in productivity and efficiency.

Contractors paid to transcribe audio clips collected by Google’s AI assistant can end up listening to sensitive information about users which include names, addresses, and other details about their personal lives. This is the latest news showing how our conversations and/or interactions with AI assistants are not as private as we may like to believe. Earlier this year, a report from Bloomberg revealed similar details about Amazon’s Alexa, explaining how audio clips recorded by Echo devices are sent without users’ knowledge to human contractors, who transcribe what’s being said in order to improve the company’s AI systems. Unacceptable, these audio clips are often recorded entirely by accident. Usually, AI assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant only start recording audio when they hear their wake word (eg, “Okay Google”), but these reports show the devices often start recording by mistake.

Tech companies say that sending audio clips to humans to be transcribed is an essential process for improving their speech recognition technology. They also stress that only a small percentage of recordings are shared in this way. A spokesperson for Google told Wired that just 0.2 percent of all recordings are transcribed by humans, and that these audio clips are never presented with identifying information about the user. However, that doesn’t hinder individuals disclosing sensitive information in the recording themselves. And companies are certainly not upfront about this transcription process. The privacy policy page for Google Home, for example, does not mention the company’s use of human contractors, or the possibility that Home might mistakenly record users.

These complications could cause legal trouble for the company, says Michael Veale, a technology privacy researcher at the Alan Turing Institute in London. He told Wired that this level of disclosure might not meet the standards set by the EU’s GDPR regulations. “You have to be very specific on what you’re implementing and how,” said Veale. “I think Google hasn’t done that because it would look creepy.”

In a blog post published later in the day, Google defended its practice of using human employees to review Assistant audio conversations. The company says it applies “a wide range of safeguards to protect user privacy throughout the entire review process,” and it does this review work to improve the Assistant’s natural language processing and its support for multiple languages. But Google also owned up to the failure of those safeguards in the case of the Belgian contract worker who provided the audio to VRT NWS, breaking the company’s data security and privacy rules in the process.

“We just learned that one of these language reviewers has violated our data security policies by leaking confidential Dutch audio data,” writes David Monsees, a product manager on the Google Search team who authored the blog post. “Our Security and Privacy Response teams have been activated on this issue, are investigating, and we will take action. We are conducting a full review of our safeguards in this space to prevent misconduct like this from happening again.”

These are the latest updates and releases from Google’s teams earlier this month. Technology is no longer at a simple standard. Everything has become more complex and integrated for purposes that does not include ensuring the protection of user privacy. Until we have an understanding of how technology works and how companies are utilizing our information, we will continue to be on the outside trying to look in. Continue to perform research and look for more articles about what companies are doing with our information.

Are you a user of Google‘s AI assistant or Alexa? How are you utilizing your device and are you releasing private information about your life?

If you would like to discuss further, please leave a comment or ask a question. I'd love to chat with my readers and hear your thoughts. Thank you for dropping in and remember ToBeSecured!