Google admits partners leaked more than 1,000 private conversations with Google Assistant Google admitted on Thursday that more than 1,000 sound recordings of customer conversations with the Google Assistant were leaked by some of its partners to a Belgian news site. These conversations are used by companies such as Google and Amazon -- which takes clips from the Amazon Echo -- to improve voice responses from their smart assistants. They are supposed to be kept confidential. But Belgian news site VRT said on Wednesday that a contractor provided it with samples of these sound samples, which VRT then used to identify some of the people in the clips. It also examined the sorts of conversations that Google collects when people say "OK Google," into a phone or a Google Home product. Among other things, VRT heard customer addresses. Sources who talked to the publication also described hearing recordings of a woman in distress and people talking about medical conditions. Google has now admitted the recordings were leaked. "We just learned that one of these language reviewers has violated our data security policies by leaking confidential Dutch audio data, " Google product manager of search David Monsees said in a blog post. "Our Security and Privacy Response teams have been activated on this issue, are 7