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How to stop Google from watching and listening on my phone? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

...within reason. I know that the top answer will be to flash a different OS on your device. A lot of us are not at that point right now.

So I was texting with my wife in Spanish and suddenly a system bubble popped up, "would you like to translate this to English?" At a minimum, this means that Google is reading the words on my screen at all times to detect the language. I don't know if this is possibly done on device, but translation certainly isn't. I've already changed my system translation app to Translate You.

I've noticed other times that Google watches or listens in the background. It has a feature to detect ambient songs playing, for example.

What other standard settings should I check for to prevent Google from watching and listening to my phone in the background?

Edit: I was not using a Google messeging app at the time. It was detecting the text from another app. The specific setting in this case was to switch off "Live Translate," in System settings.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

but translation certainly isn’t [done on device]

Google Translate has downloadable language packs and runs on device, including offline in foreign countries without roaming data. Including the live video OCR and replacement.

That’s not to say that what you experienced isn’t creepy, but it’s not necessarily cloud-driven.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Fair enough. I've also been using an incredible on-device translator, RTranslator, which is truly next-level, and FOSS. If anyone else out there has translation needs, I highly recommend it!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

RTranslate is great, though it did sometimes not translate sections of the German text I gave it.