• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, March 3, 2025

Google is urging a federal judge to dismiss a class-action lawsuit by users of voice-activated devices who allege that the company wrongly recorded their conversations and shared snippets with outside parties.

The dispute centers on claims that Google violated its privacy policy by recording and sharing voice data in the absence of “Hey, Google” or “OK, Google” commands. Those “hotwords” signal owners' intention to interact with smart speakers, phones or other voice-activated devices.

Google argues in a motion for summary judgment filed Friday that “false accepts” -- meaning instances where its devices recorded someone who hadn't given a hotword command -- did not violate its privacy policy.

“Since Assistant launched in 2016, Google has informed users that by enabling VAA, users are consenting to Google recording, saving, and using their audio data to improve Google’s speech technologies,” the company writes, using an acronym for its opt-in Voice and Audio Activity setting.

The company devotes much of its argument to analyzing the specific language in a privacy policy that was in effect between 2018 and 2022.

That policy said the company “may” collect “voice and audio information when you use audio features.”

Among other allegations, the plaintiffs asserted in a 2021 amended complaint that this language represented a promise by Google to only collect audio information when people use audio features.

Google disputes that interpretation.

“Describing information that Google 'may' collect in certain circumstances does not amount to an enforceable promise by Google that it will never collect voice and audio information absent those circumstances,” the company writes in its motion, filed with U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San Jose.

The company adds that its privacy policy provides that the collection of voice data hinges on whether consumers actively enable its Voice and Audio Activity setting -- not whether they say a hotword. (Google also writes that since August 2020 -- after the case was initially brought, but before the final amended complaint was filed -- it has told consumers who activate Voice and Audio Activity that it may save audio if a device “incorrectly detects an activation.”)

The legal battle began in 2019, soon after Dutch radio broadcaster VRT reported that Google Home smart speakers and Google Assistant transmitted consumers' conversations to the company, even when people hadn't first given a hotword command.

VRT also reported that Google sometimes sends portions of users' conversations to outside contractors who analyze language patterns. VRT said it had listened to more than 1,000 excerpts of conversations -- including 153 where participants hadn't said a hotword.

Freeman is expected to hold a hearing in the case on May 8.