You Might Be Surprised By What Your Phone Keeps Track Of

As I was killing a few minutes at reddit yesterday, I spotted a thread that made an interesting claim: If you’ve ever asked your phone a question – either via Siri, Cortana, or what-have-you – it’s likely been recorded. At this point, I don’t think it’s much of a surprise that our mobile devices record a lot, but I admit that after exploring further, I was simply blown away.

In the reddit thread, user FallenMyst relays that they just began a new job that requires them to listen in on recordings of questions people have asked, through speech, in order to better improve voice recognition. How this company gets these sound bites, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t require much effort to see that this user isn’t making things up.

If you’re on Android, and haven’t adjusted the default privacy settings, then it’ll be especially easy to showcase the level of recording Google, as an example, pulls off. Ever voice a question through the Google app? Check this out.

What you’re likely to see at this URL is a list of questions or comments spoken through the Google app, and their transcriptions. If you click the ‘Play’ button to the left of any one, you’ll be able to hear what Google heard – and yes, it’s a little creepy. I’ve only spoken a single question through the Google app, and that was reflected in my list, but some have commented that they have recordings from one or two years ago.

It’s hard to say how safely stored these recordings are, but FallenMyst relayed a couple really embarrassing sound bites that they had to pore over.

Again, it should come as a surprise to no one that Google (and others) scrape so much of our data to better themselves (either financially or technologically), but this is a revelation of sorts that surprised all five Android users I queried.

Despite the fact that this recording functionality is default, Google could argue that it’s not being sneaky about this functionality. After all, these recordings can be easily found by anyone who hits up their Google Dashboard.

Just how much other data is stored there? You might be surprised. I decided to check out the Location History section, and was wowed yet again. Without my knowledge, my phone recorded many of my movements over the past few years – with some gaps here and there. It even recorded my brief trip to New York a couple of weeks ago, which included a layover in Montreal.

Again, this is a default function of Android that I was unaware of, and from those I gauged, it’s clear that I’m not alone.

If you’re interested in disabling tracking for these two things in particular, you can take of that by visiting here, or navigating a number of menus on your Android device (this is more tedious).

To disable location tracking on Android, you’ll need to enter the Google system settings screen, hit-up the Location option, and then scroll down to Google Location Reporting. If you’re using multiple Google accounts, you will want to make sure that the tracking is disabled for all of them.

Disabling the recorded sound bites requires a bit more work. You’ll again have to begin at the system settings menu, then scroll down to Accounts, select Google, and then Search. From here, select Accounts and privacy, and then disable Voice & Audio activity.

This just takes care of two things that Google tracks, however, so if you’re interested in seeing what else is stored, I highly recommend you look through your Google Dashboard. You might just be surprised.