Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 3 December 2019
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Data Collection by Digital Assistants: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Ryan Meade:
Yes, that is the point I was going to get to. Misactivations or false accepts can happen, particularly where there is a lot of background noise, other noisy environments and so on, but importantly, in all the devices, we have tried to provide feedback to the users so they are aware that the device is recording. We have also made it a lot easier for users to delete that recording, so one can simply say to one's assistant to delete what one just said. It will be deleted and will no longer be there.
The other question the Deputy had was about deletion of data. As I said, we have taken steps to automatically delete more data more quickly, and to make it easier for users to delete. The third question the Deputy had was about users getting frustrated with the level of notices and so on. That is a valid point and is one of the reasons we have put so much investment into developing the Google Account site where people can see in an understandable way what the settings are and adjust them - they can use that to opt out of a whole host of settings, including personalised advertising - and the privacy policy which we refreshed in the last year, again to move away from this idea of a wall of legal text into a more understandable scenario.
The Deputy's other question was-----