14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung Smart TVs are not the only devices that keep their ear pricked for voice commands in order to transform them to text and execute them, as Google's voice search extension for Chrome web browser also captures more than it should and sends the message to the mother ship.
The browser extension, currently in beta, has been created to allow users to input their searches into Google’s engine without typing the string, by voicing the queries, after saying “Ok Google.”
It only requires permission to use the microphone available to the computer in order to fulfill its task.
However, going through the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy documents, Sean Sullivan, a security advisor at F-Secure, found that apart from the actual search query voiced by the user, the extension also delivers to Google a few seconds preceding the request.
This means that the recording feature is always turned on, otherwise it would not be able to capture sound before the command marked by the “Ok Google” trigger.
It does make sense that sound before the trigger words is captured since the feature needs to pay attention to the conversation in the room in order to determine when the user wants to perform a search. On the other hand, this does not make it okay to send the data to Google.
Presentation video for Google Voice Search Hotword:
