Google's Been Recording Everything We Say

Last week, it surfaced that Google was guilty of being a little bit sloppy with their ad placement and found themselves in trouble with the UK government. This week, after reading an article in The Independent, it’s come to our attention that Google could have a record of everything we’ve ever said to it over the past few years, via its voice search tool…

We know that voice search trends are on the rise, but now we’re wondering how many people are aware that Google has been storing their voice searches and commands since as far back as 2015? How many people would be happy about it? And can you delete Google voice history?

Now, we’re not accusing Google of spying on us all. Despite the spot of trouble last week, we generally think Google are pretty good guys. So presumably, Google is just using the information to improve its language recognition tools and ability to give you – the user – the best results possible (much how it’s been reading lots of romance novels, too). But the fact of the matter remains that the portal used to store all of your voice recordings may well be full of things you’ve said over the years whilst under the impression you were talking in private.

This comes as a reminder of just how much information is collected about us online today, often without our knowledge, and how intimate that information can be. As it stands, the only way to stop Google from every recording your embarrassing queries again by turning off the virtual assistant or avoiding using voice search. However, many will feel this removes one of the most useful search tools.

Can you delete Google voice history?

Though they’ve kept pretty quiet about all of this, Google claims to be open and do offer you access to all of these recordings. So, if you want to delete Google voice history and remove this private information, you’ll have to build up the courage to face all the cringe-worthy things you’ve asked Google over the years first, and head to Google’s History page. Here you’ll find an account of all your web activity, with a separate page for audio activity.

The good news is that if you can’t face seeing your whole Google search history, you can delete Google voice history in one go by selecting the “More” button, then “Delete options” and finally “Advanced” where you can click through to delete all. Or, you may choose to only delete some specific, especially mortifying recordings. Just check the box to the left of the recording, then select “delete” at the top of the page.