Google has acknowledged its contractors can listen to recordings of what people say to its artificial-intelligence system, ‘Google Assistant’. The company has admitted that humans can access recordings made by the Assistant, after some of its Dutch language recordings were leaked. The recordings were obtained by the Belgian public broadcaster VRT, which found recordings of users that had identifiable information, including one person’s address and other personal information, such as a family discussing their grandchildren by name. Google says contractors listen to recordings to better understand language patterns and accents, and notes that recordings may be used by the company in its user terms. The recordings reported on by VRT may not be in compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, rules that went into effect in May 2018 that limit the data companies based in the EU or doing business in the EU can hold on consumers.

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The Guardian