Here is a guide to prevent your Android phone from hearing you by disabling 3 microphone-related functions. Android users can disable the “OK Google” feature and other microphone-related functions to prevent their device from listening to what is being said around it.
If you want your Android phone to stop listening to you, you can disable its “OK Google” feature in your phone’s Settings app. To completely prevent your Android from listening, you can also turn off listening while driving and turn off the microphone of the Google search app.
Does the phone listen to us?
Android phones are configured to listen to you to respond to wake-up words like “OK Google” and execute voice commands.
Your phone may silently listen to everything you say. This is because smartphone voice assistants like “OK Google” need to know when to take action.
To activate the voice assistant of your Android phone, all you need to say are the activation words “OK Google” or “Hey Google”. The phone only uses audio that begins with, or just before, the activation word and ends when you have completed the command.
These interactions are stored to improve the service. You can see your Google Assistant history by visiting My Business on Google. Click Filter by date and product, then select Voice and Audio.
Does our cell phone really “spy” on us? Does the phone listen to us?
While having a voice assistant on hand has its benefits, this understandably raises privacy concerns for smartphone users.
So if you prefer your phone not to listen to you, you can disable the features that do. You will need to disable “Hey Google”, audio monitoring while driving, and the Google search microphone. Once this is done, Google will no longer listen to your voice.
How to prevent your phone from listening by disabling the Google Assistant
To stop your phone from spying on you, follow these steps:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap Google.
- In the Services section, select Account Services.
- Choose Search, Assistant, and Voice.
- Tap Voice.
- In the Hey Google section, select Voice Match.
- Disable Hey Google by sliding the button to the left.
How to prevent Android phones from listening by disabling audio monitoring
After disabling Hey Google in the Voice Match menu, as shown in the previous section, you stay in the same window.
- Tap Driving Settings.
- Switch off While driving by sliding the button to the left.
How To Stop Google Search App From Listening On Your Android Phone
- Launch the Settings app.
- Tap Apps and notifications or Apps, depending on your device.
- Select See all apps if necessary. Otherwise, scroll down and tap Google.
- Choose Permissions.
- Tap Microphone.
- Select Deny to prevent Google from using the microphone.
