Privacy Notice for Audio Collection from Children’s Features on Google Assistant

We want to help parents understand how we collect voice and audio information when people engage with children’s features, like Assistant for Families Actions or YouTube Kids videos, through Google Assistant. In addition to the information provided in the Google Privacy Policy this Privacy Notice also applies to the use of these features on Google Assistant.

Children under the applicable age in their country whose parents have created their Google Account with Family Link can link their accounts to most Google Assistant-enabled devices.

The "Include voice and audio activity" option under the Web & App Activity setting controls whether voice and audio recordings are stored to your Google Account when you use your voice to interact with Assistant. This option is off by default when creating a Google account, and is not required to use the Assistant.

If your child’s "Include voice and audio activity" option under the Web & App Activity setting is checked, when they interact with the Assistant on a signed-in device, a recording of their interaction, plus a few seconds before, may be stored with their account. Google uses this saved voice and audio activity to develop and improve its audio recognition technologies and the Google services that use them, like Google Assistant. If your child uses Google Assistant with Voice Match and you’ve turned on this voice and audio activity setting, Google may also temporarily process a model of your child’s voice from their saved audio to develop and improve Google’s voice technologies and Google services that use them.

If you created a new account for your child with Family Link, you can access, update, remove and export your child’s audio recordings by signing into their Google Account. If you do not remember your child’s password, you can reset it through the Family Link app or via Family Link settings on the web. Once signed in, you can use the various controls described in the Google Privacy Policy (such as Google activity controls) to manage your child’s voice and audio activity settings and the audio recordings stored with their account, including to delete any activity stored in their account.

If your child created their own account prior to the change of the minimum required age in your country, and you later granted permission for your child to keep their account, you may need your child’s permission to reset their password or sign in to their account.

If you have consented to enable Voice Match for your child so that Google Assistant can recognize them and tell them apart from others, audio from a small number of your child’s Assistant interactions may be saved on their Assistant-enabled devices and sent temporarily to Google’s servers to fine tune your child’s Voice Match model.

If you interact with children’s features—like Assistant for Families Actions or YouTube Kids videos—on Google Assistant without a Google Account Managed with Family Link that has opted in to include audio recordings or consented to Voice Match, we will only briefly collect voice and audio recordings of those interactions. This information is processed to allow for use of the audio feature, so we can fulfill the interaction, and then immediately deleted from our servers.

Last modified: May 31, 2022