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Google halting speech data transcription in EU

Posted at 7:05 AM, Aug 01, 2019
and last updated 2019-08-01 10:05:25-04

BERLIN (AP) — A German data-protection official says Google has given reassurances that it won’t make transcripts of speech data picked up by its artificial-intelligence system in the European Union for at least the next three months.

Johannes Caspar, who as Hamburg’s commissioner for data protection acts as Germany’s lead regulator of Google on privacy issues, said Thursday his authority received the assurance after opening proceedings against Google. He said EU data protection law allows national authorities to take action for a maximum of three months.

Google acknowledged last month its contractors are able to listen to recordings of what people tell Google Assistant after some Dutch-language recordings were leaked.

Caspar urged other authorities to consider action against artificial-intelligence systems from rivals such as Apple and Amazon.