Play all the voice commands you ever sent to Google
Voice & Audio Activity is a feature of Google History that Google users can access to list and listen to voice recordings that they have sent to Google.
While I'm not actively trying to convince others that privacy is important and should not be neglected, it is often difficult to convince others when the topic is discussed.
One of the better ways in my opinion is to point users at services on the Internet that display usage data they have collected about users.
One good starting point is the Google Account history which visualizes data that Google has collected in the past and made available in the interface that is accessible on the web.
The Voice & Audio Activity website is part of Google History. It enables you to look up and even play audio recordings that you have sent to Google in the past.
If you use your voice to look up things or run commands on your Android device for instance, then you will notice that they are all listed there on the page.
To get there simply click on the following link. Please note that you need to sign in to a Google account to access the functionality.
The page lists activity by date and reminds you that only you can see the data and that you are in control of it.
Each item is listed with a transcript of what you have said, the device or service you sent the command to and the time of the activity.
The play button allows you to play back what you said right on the site. Since it is a recording that Google saves by default, you will hear your own voice.
The settings enable you to pause voice & video activity. This won't prevent you from issuing commands or using voice features that Google provides but may reduce the accuracy according to Google.
Disabling it won't affect storage of information by Google products that can be used to store your audio or voice inputs. Google may also continue to collect and store data in anonymized form.
Pausing Voice & Audio Activity may limit or disable features such as using "Ok Google" to start a voice search and reduce the accuracy of speech recognition across Google products that use your voice.
Note that this setting does not affect storage of information by Google products (like Voice) that can be used to store your audio or voice inputs. Google may also continue to collect and store audio data in an anonymized way.
Remember, pausing this setting doesn't delete any previous activity, but you can view, edit and delete your private Voice & Audio Activity data anytime.
Selecting the Delete options on the other hand enables you to delete voice and audio activity for the current day, yesterday, or an advanced time period (last four weeks or all time).
Closing Words
If you value privacy, you may find it rather scary that Google saves all your voice and audio activity on its servers. Others may find reassurance that Google has opened its books and lets them see what the company has stored about them.
Since Google admits that it may record audio activity even if you have paused the feature, the only option to block the company from doing so is to not use voice controls or commands.
Tip: Check out the activity controls page to manage other activity that Google records.
Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.
Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).
For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.
You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.
If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.
EMRE ÇITAK posts are useless because they are fraught with inaccuracies and are irrelevant.
AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI
Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.
Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.
Don’t tell me!
Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!
Bring in the dictatorship!!!
And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe
GateKeeper ?
That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!
But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!
@The Dark Lady,
@KeZa,
@Database failure,
@Howard Pearce,
@Howard Allan Pearce,
Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.
The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
>> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
How to display only articles by a specific author:
Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033
By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
>> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme
We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.
“Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”
Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.
No, they didn’t lmao.
https://twitter.com/vxunderground/status/1706523877478670542
What does this article about Musk/Tesla have to do with computing, devices, phones?
More irelevant filler.
yeah sure… they are always the victims and it is only against them ????
Believe them 100% and never question anything. This lawsuit sounds like the type you heard when people were eating batteries.