[BreachExchange] Google Data Breach Faces Review by Irish Privacy Watchdog

[Destry Winant]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-12/google-data-breach-faces-review-by-irish-privacy-watchdog

Google faces a possible investigation by Irish data privacy regulators
related to reports that contractors had been able to listen to audio
of users of its digital assistant technology.

The Irish Data Protection Commission received a breach notification
from the company late Thursday, said Graham Doyle, the agency’s
spokesman. Google reacted in a blog post on Thursday after reports by
Belgian broadcaster VRT that contractors could listen to recordings
made from people’s conversations with their Google Assistant.

The Irish regulator is Google’s main privacy watchdog in the EU and
could, if serious violations are found, levy hefty fines under the
bloc’s new data protection rules. Helen Dixon, Ireland’s commissioner
for data protection, said in an interview last month she has about 20
investigations open into big technology companies, including Twitter
Inc., Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp and Instagram platforms.

Google in a blog post on Thursday said it is working with language
experts to help improve its digital home assistant. They “review and
transcribe a small set of queries to help us better understand those
languages” and it’s “a critical part of the process of building speech
technology, and is necessary to creating products like the Google
Assistant.”

“We just learned that one of these language reviewers has violated our
data security policies by leaking confidential Dutch audio data,”
Google said in the post. “Our security and privacy response teams have
been activated on this issue, are investigating, and we will take
action. We are conducting a full review of our safeguards in this
space to prevent misconduct like this from happening again.”

A Google spokesman declined to comment about the regulatory review.

The news comes just two months after Google unveiled new privacy
features at its annual developer conference and also gave users new
reasons to give the company even more of their personal information.
Bloomberg in April reportedthat at Amazon.com Inc., people employed to
help improve its Alexa digital assistant, listen to voice recordings
captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices.