• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 3, 2025

Users of voice-activated devices who claim Google wrongly recorded their conversations and shared snippets with outside parties are urging a federal judge to allow their lawsuit to proceed to trial.

“Google effectively embedded a live mic in tens of millions of individuals’ private lives,” counsel for the consumers writes in papers filed Wednesday with U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San Jose.

“The record is replete with evidence showing that Google not only knew the Assistant frequently activated and recorded individuals in situations where they did speak a hotword, but purposefully used audio resulting from those 'False Accepts' to create data sets, train machine learning models, and improve its technology,” the plaintiffs' lawyers add.

The battle 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 recently sought summary judgment in its favor, claiming that a privacy policy in effect between 2018 and 2022 provided that the company “may” collect “voice and audio information” when people use audio features.

Counsel for the consumers is now asking the judge to reject that position. The plaintiffs' latest filing contains large swaths of blacked-out passages, but appears to argue that the privacy--policy language Google relies on doesn't apply when the company accidentally records conversations.

The dispute dates to 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.