Roger Fingas
Owners of Google's Nest Secure system are upset about a microphone on the product suddenly being enabled for Google Assistant — one that they weren't aware existed.
Google announced the update earlier this month, explaining that the mic had "not been used up to this point," and could be enabled or disabled at any time via the Nest mobile app. In a blog post it further explained that Assistant is an opt-in feature, and that customers will receive email explaining how to activate.
This wasn't enough to comfort people on social media though, who were angry to learn that a their home security system had the potential to record them, CSO noted. Criminals, businesses, or government agents could theoretically hack into Secure's Guard hub and eavesdrop.
"The on-device microphone was never intended to be a secret and should have been listed in the tech specs," the company said in a statement to AppleInsider and other publications. "That was an error on our part. The microphone has never been on and is only activated when users specifically enable the option."
Many people are already distrustful of smartspeakers, both because of the potential for spying and a handful of real-world incidents. Last summer, an Oregon family's Amazon Echo speaker even mysteriously recorded household audio and sent it to a man's employee, who called his family to alert them to what was happening.
Apple's first toe in the smartspeaker market was last year's HomePod. The company is generally believed to have tighter security than Amazon or Google, and there have been no known eavesdropping complaints so far.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
62 Comments
Here comes another congressional investigation. This is blatant spying and Google needs to be held accountable. Everyone goes after Apple for a simple bug in Facebook they didn’t know existed while Google knows they put a microphone in this device and never told anyone. They can’t get away with this one.
I am sure that was an "accident".
This is one reason why I want a headless Mac in my home- not an iMac with a camera and mike that cannot be turned off. I can disconnect a USB connected camera and mike.
There's absolutely no evidence that this was a working microphone that was eavesdropping on anyone and let's be clear that Alphabet is the one that announced the update that enabled the microphone, not a blogger that discovered nefarious activity. For those looking for a conspiracy you'll have to look harder. This is no different from countless other tech companies that don't disclose inactive HW for a variety of reasons.
PS: Let's also be clear that Nest Secure came out almost 4 years after Google acquired the company so anyone with trust issues with Google (which is most of us here) wouldn't have been a customer of this product anyway.
Looking forward to replacing my Google Home based stuff with something more secure. I've got an Amazon Echo Show and Dot sitting disconnected. You don't need cloud accounts for Home Automation the cloud is simply needed for voice assistants and frankly I try to build my home around everything being easy to control without voice so that voice is just a bonus.
Thought long and hard about picking up a HomePod over the holidays when they went on sale. I imagine that eventually my system will pretty much just contain a few HomePods and Sonos and with the resurgence of HomeKit I'll start moving back in that direction.
Google's "Ooops! That was an accident. We didn't mean to do spy like that." argument is getting worn and weak.
They used the same argument when they were caught collecting user's WiFi data with their camera cars ("It was a rogue programmer. We didn't know!") -- but then refused to delete the many terabites of the private data still stored on their servers.
We are making a mountain out of the possibility that Huawei might one day spy on Americans -- while Google seems to do it on a daily basis with impunity.
Oh, I forgot! "Google is our friend!"