Google Criticized For 'Opaque' Audio-Listening Binary In Debian Chromium

An anonymous reader writes: Google has fallen under criticism for including a compiled audio-monitoring binary in Chromium for Debian. A report was logged at Debian's bug register on Tuesday noting the presence of a non-auditable 'hotword' module in Chromium 43. The module facilitates Google's "OK, Google" functionality, which listens for that phrase via a Chrome user's microphone and attempts afterwards to interpret the user's instructions as a search query. Matt Giuca from the Chromium development team responded after the furore developed, disclaiming Google from any responsibility from auditing Chromium code, but promising clearer controls over the feature in release 45.

Comments

Re:Turn off in Windows?

[swillden]

unplug it, or if its embedded, remove the audio driver for it, or set the 'volume' control so it cannot hear anything anyway. And put some tape over the little hole it listens through.

Now.. good luck doing that on your phone.... best just to remove the app (if you can) or trust Google not to have slipped this stuff into Android as part of its voice activation feature (for your convenience, of course)

Hotword detection is optional in Android. If you don't like it, just turn it off.