So it shouldn’t be news to many people that the voice searches you do on your Android devices as well as Android Wear are transmitted to Google for them to do their magic, and translate your voice to on-screen words to complete your request. What my come as news to some, as it did to me, is that Google don’t use and discard the searches, they’re stored in your account history.
First things first, don’t panic!
The essential information you need to know before going any further is that only you have access to the data, the voice recordings are not available to anyone else. The second essential piece of information is that if you wish you can delete your voice searches.
So lets take a quick look at why Google would store these searches and alleviate the fears that some “security conscious” users may have.
Why store this stuff? It’s simple really. Google stores your voice searches and the original audio recordings so that it can learn how to better understand what you say and deliver more targeted, useful search results. Withouy the ability to store your voice search history, Google’s ability to give you good answers would be much less.
That’s about it really, there’s no other reason for Google to keep this stuff and that’s why they make it so easy for users to delete it if they feel that Google shouldn’t retain their voice searches.
Of course, if you delete your previous voice searches and the audio recordings, you can expect that Google may lose some of the uncanny ability to understand exactly what you’re after each and every single time.
The bottom line is there is no reason to panic, this information can only be seen by you (and by Google voice recognition systems), and there’s a good reason for it to be there. Panic over!
Are you concerned by the data that Google store about you?
