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What level of data privacy is maintained when I used Google speech to text api or google cloud speech solution. I want to know this because I am working on an application which converts audio files into text and those files may contain user sensitive data.

Bhargav Deshpande
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2 Answers2

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I think this one https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/data-logging and that https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/data-logging-terms has a more tailored explanation.

To help Cloud Speech-to-Text to better suit your needs, you can opt into the data logging program. The data logging program allows Google to improve the quality of Speech-to-Text through using customer data to refine its speech recognition service. As a benefit for opting in, you gain access to enhanced transcription models that Google has trained by using data collected through the data logging program.

Data Privacy and Security

To help Cloud Speech-to-Text to better suit your needs, you can opt into the data logging program. The data logging program allows Google to improve the quality of Speech-to-Text through using customer data to refine its speech recognition service. As a benefit for opting in, you gain access to enhanced transcription models that Google has trained by using data collected through the data logging program.

It seems it's "opt in" feature where a customer needs to explicitly participate into the program which in return Google gives access to its better models.

And from here https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/enable-data-logging :

When you enable data logging, you permit Google to collect data from your audio transcription requests. Google then uses this data to improve its machine learning models used for recognizing speech audio.

Not sure if it implies that if you are opted out, then Google doesn't collect your data.

Community
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Vitaliy
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  • Note that this answer only addresses the matter of their Cloud API. Chrome offers speech recognition directly in the browser too (via the WebSpeech API's [SpeechRecognition](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/SpeechRecognition) interface) and this works by sending speech data to Google. The [Chrome EULA](https://www.google.com/chrome/privacy/eula_text.html) and [Google Chrome Privacy Notice](https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/privacy/) would be the relevant documents for this, but are silent on the topic. – Fabien Snauwaert Mar 04 '19 at 12:26
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    Actually its quite stupid that they only talk about what you get when you opt in but not what the terms are when you opt out. I searched their page about this and couldnt find a straight answer. – Subramaniam Ramasubramanian Jul 16 '19 at 08:50
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    Does this also apply to the Android's `SpeechRecognizer`(developer.android.com/reference/android/speech/SpeechRecognizer) ? – S_S Sep 30 '19 at 16:21
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Take a look at https://cloud.google.com/terms. I think this your specific question may be have been answered here: https://cloud.google.com/terms/data-processing-terms

Daryush Laqab
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  • Thanks for the info Daryush – Bhargav Deshpande Jun 17 '17 at 11:00
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    If anyone could include a summary of the privacy implications from that linked document, you will get one up-vote from me. Having to go and trawl through an enormous legal document is not really the stack overflow way. In fact, external links are frowned upon in general. Is the summary basically - "Google keeps all your speech data"? – spechter Mar 27 '18 at 03:12
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    I agree, always quote the relevant portion when you link to something. Pointing to T&C without answering the question could replace entire stack overflow with a link to the google search bar. – Joeblade Jun 15 '18 at 15:41