Google Adds Privacy-Sensitive Feature on Google Assistant Devices

Alvin Wanjala

4 years ago

Google has launched Guest Mode on Google Assistant, its smart AI-powered assistant to boost privacy. Guest Mode will allow owners of smart devices from the company that uses Google Assistant to use the voice recognition platform without recording their activity on signed-in accounts.

The concerns around smart assistant devices intruding on people’s privacy at home lead to substantial privacy changes from providers like Amazon, Google, and Apple in the recent past.

Guest Mode is a critical feature in this space, especially after past evidence of human reviewing recordings from voice recognition platforms. And most importantly, past reports that accidental activations exposed private conversations.

But Guest Mode is a step in the right direction and can be activated easily in the blink of an eye. All you have to utter is, “Hey Google, turn on Guest Mode.” Similarly, “Hey Google, turn off Guest Mode” will deactivate the feature.

With Guest Mode on, smart devices like Nest Audio and Nest Hub Max won’t save your activity or offer personalized experiences. But, you can still perform popular actions like playing music, controlling your smart home devices, setting timers, or any other thing that doesn’t require a personalized experience.

So, you will miss out on accessing your contacts, calendar entries, and the rest, all of which are tied to your specific Google Account.

“Once Guest Mode has been turned on, your device will play a special chime, and you’ll see a guest icon on the display. If you’re ever unsure if you’re in Guest Mode, you can always ask your device, ‘Is Guest Mode on?’ Guest Mode will stay on until you choose to turn it off,” Google Assistant product manager Philippe de Lurand Pierre-Paul says in a blog post.

Guest Mode is another privacy feature added on Google Assistant after previously availed features. Last year Google allowed users to automatically choose a frequency of automatically deleting Assistant activity and instantly delete data with commands.