Virtual Keyboard With Microphone: Voice Dictation vs. Privacy

What’s the best privacy option for users who want a virtual keyboard with a microphone for voice typing? Here’s what to keep in mind for both Android and iOS devices:

Voice dictation can benefit a large audience, including everyday smartphone users. Gboard is the most popular Google virtual keyboard app for mobile devices, and it’s also one of the best options for those looking to take advantage of voice typing. Be careful when trying out unproven third-party keyboards.

In this article, we’ll explore the topic of mobile keyboard apps and the information they collect.

Uses for Voice Dictation

Curious about what you can do with voice typing on your smartphone?

Voice dictation, also known as voice typing or speech-to-text, is a way to type and interface with your device by using your voice. No physical keyboard or finger typing is required.

The broader topic of speech recognition is an exciting area with many applications today.

Such applications can be seen in several industries:

• Automotive: Voice-activated navigation systems allow drivers to keep their eyes on the road, reducing the risk of an accident.
• Healthcare: Doctors and nurses use dictation applications to record patient and treatment information.
• Sales: Speech recognition technology can help a call center transcribe thousands of phone calls between customers and agents to identify common call issues.

But even as an ordinary individual, using voice dictation with your smartphone can provide a lot of value.

Consider some examples of widely-used Google products that involve speech recognition:

• Google Assistant allows you to ask for help by voice.
• Gboard lets you dictate messages to your friends.
• Google Meet provides auto-captioning for your meetings.

Another handy app is Recorder for Google Pixel, which instantly transforms audio into text so that you can search, edit, and share your recordings.

This type of app can come in handy for many situations. You can use audio recording apps to easily save and organize audio if you’re listening to a lengthy lecture, having an interesting conversation, or conducting an important interview.

Some apps also boast additional convenient features. In the case of Recorder for Google Pixel, when you edit your audio transcript in text form, it automatically changes the audio. You can watch Google’s short film showing off the app here. From personal experience, the app is both fast and impressive. However, it’s only available for Google’s line of Pixel smartphones.

For the everyday individual, voice typing provides a convenient way to text or message in a hands-free approach.

However, your smartphone requires a virtual keyboard or another app with microphone access.

Some smartphones have this capability built right in with their default apps.

But you may not be aware of what on-screen keyboards are out there or which available option would be best for privacy.

Gboard: The Most Popular Virtual Keyboard

Gboard seems to be the most popular virtual keyboard app for mobile devices. First released on iOS in May 2016, it was released later that same year in December 2016 as an update and renaming of the already-established Google Keyboard app on Android. As of April 2022, Gboard has listed over 5 billion installs on the Google Play Store.

Although alternative keyboard apps exist, no other competing app comes anywhere close to such widespread usage.

Gboard is already the default keyboard on some Android devices, such as Google’s Pixel series smartphones. The Google Play Store counts both user downloads and pre-installed copies of an app when tallying installs. To be clear, that 5 billion number doesn’t indicate that 5 billion people actively use Gboard. Yet with an estimated 6.64 billion smartphone users in the world today, it seems likely that a majority use Gboard to interface with their smartphone devices.

Gboard is available for both iOS and Android devices and provides valuable features such as:

• Glide Typing — Type faster by sliding your finger from letter to letter
• Voice typing — Easily dictate text on the go
• Handwriting — Write in cursive and printed letters
• Emoji Search — Find that emoji faster
• GIFs — Search and share GIFs for the perfect reaction.
• Multilingual typing — No more switching between a number of languages manually. Gboard will autocorrect and suggest from any of your enabled languages.
• Google Translate — Translate as you type on the keyboard

Which is fantastic!

So why wouldn’t someone want to use Gboard?

Privacy Concerns for On-Screen Keyboards

How do you know you can trust your mobile keyboard?

And what data do on-screen keyboards collect and store about their users?

Let’s begin by looking at how mobile keyboards work. It’s obvious that when we type on our devices, we may be entering very private and confidential information, like passwords or banking information, or personal messages. It would be a nightmare if everything we’ve ever typed into our devices was logged and stored somewhere.

Many keyboards require intrusive permissions, which might trigger some alarms in people who would be rightly concerned about why such microphone permissions are required.

Consider Gboard, for example, which has access to:

• Camera
• take pictures and videos
• Storage
• read the contents of your USB storage
• Contacts
• read your contacts
• find accounts on the device
• Microphone
• record audio
• Other
• download files without notification
• view network connections
• full network access

You can check the complete list of required permissions on the Google Play Store (and you can check this information for any app you download from the Play Store). Some of these are necessary permissions for certain features to work. So is this a problem?

Requesting many permissions doesn’t necessarily mean that app developers are up to no good. In this case, Google has been very transparent about protecting Gboard users’ private data.

The Google Security Blog has a post from October 2020 titled “Privacy-Preserving Smart Input with Gboard,” describing how sensitive personal content can’t be accessed by Gboard. This article by Wired, also from October 2020, titled “How Google’s Android Keyboard Keeps’ Smart Replies’ Private,” explains how Gboard emphasizes user privacy by having recommendations run through Android vs. the app itself.

This data transmitted from a combination of the Android operating system and the Gboard app is encrypted and anonymous. This is done through an approach called Federated Learning.

Federated Learning enables mobile phones to collaboratively learn a shared prediction model while keeping all the training data on the device. The Google AI Blog describes in simple terms how it works:

“Your device downloads the current model, improves it by learning from data on your phone, and then summarizes the changes as a small focused update. Only this update to the model is sent to the cloud, using encrypted communication, where it is immediately averaged with other user updates to improve the shared model. All the training data remains on your device, and no individual updates are stored in the cloud.”

In short, there’s enough reasonable evidence to believe that Gboard indeed does try to keep its user data secure and private.

Instead, the primary risk is unproven third-party keyboards.

We can define third-party keyboard apps as keyboard apps that don’t come pre-installed on your phone by your manufacturer. Why is there more risk with third-party keyboards? There are a few reasons. One is reputation: companies like Google or Apple may not be perfect, but it’s in their best interests to secure their own products. They also have the resources to attract the necessary talent for developing robust security and privacy protections.

Another thing to note is that there also tends to be more coverage and scrutiny on big-name tech companies and the products they release. This doesn’t mean that you should automatically trust everything that big tech companies say or do (if only for the simple fact that no one gets everything right one hundred percent of the time). It’s still important to do your due diligence to properly investigate the products and services that you sign up to use.

Compare this to third-party apps, where you might just have to take their word for it that they won’t do anything shady with your data… until some scandal or data leak is reported.

Check out this overview of various privacy issues related to third-party keyboard apps:

• GO Keyboard was at one point reported to be spying on millions of users and executing code from remote servers
• Ai.type failed to secure the personal data of 31 million users, and then years later, the app was also discovered to make unauthorized purchases of digital content without users’ permission
• TouchPal was caught bundling invasive adware with its software on hundreds of millions of Android phones
• Kika Keyboard and Cheetah Mobile also engaged in malicious advertising practices and data collection without users’ knowledge
• Microsoft SwiftKey had to suspend cloud syncing after a data leak that led to users receiving suggestions of unfamiliar personal information on their keyboard

It’s not the user’s fault when they discover that a company has actually been lying to them or otherwise hiding information about the data they collect.

But what can we learn from all this?

Here are some basic guidelines to consider before using any mobile app:

1. Look at what permissions are being asked for.
2. Read the privacy policy.
3. Ask yourself: Is this a reputable brand or company?
4. Can you find anything online that gives you good reason to trust or distrust this service?
5. Make your best judgment. Keep in mind that just because an app has plenty of users doesn’t mean that the app is secure or respects user privacy.

Best Virtual Keyboards for Privacy

We’ve written about how some virtual keyboards collect data for legitimate features like implementing predictive entry, gesture, or swipe interpretation. Other on-screen keyboards send some or all of your data to the cloud.

We’ve also included a list of our best private Android keyboards, with some highlights below:

OpenBoard

OpenBoard is a free and open-source software (FOSS) implementation based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) keyboard.

The project has an active development team addressing bugs and continuously improving the virtual keyboard.

While there is no swipe or gesture typing, the predictive suggestions are solid, speeding up text entry and helping make corrections.

F-Droid | Google Play | Source Code

TypeWise

TypeWise is built with privacy as a guiding principle.

Not only is Typewise’s unique honeycomb keyboard better for users’ efficiency, but the company makes design decisions that put their users’ privacy first. For example, the keyboard’s onboard AI continuously refines a usage model locally on the device instead of in the cloud.

Typewise’s business model and privacy policies (app | offline app) lean toward a fair transaction and respect for user privacy.

F-Droid | Google Play | Source Code

Gboard

This article has already gone somewhat into detail about whether Gboard should be considered a good option for privacy.

While it’s not open-source, it does have the most eyes watching it.

Gboard is a generally safe keyboard option. On a Google Android smartphone, it is the default keyboard and is highly reliable. On iOS, Gboard is a good option to diversify text entry away from Apple’s own keyboard, QuickType.

F-Droid | Google Play | Source Code

Final Thoughts

If you just need a basic virtual keyboard for typing on your smartphone, several good apps focus on user privacy.

Such apps may also offer predictive suggestions and other useful features. However, out of the above keyboard recommendations, only Gboard has the capability for voice dictation.

If you’re looking for the best on-screen keyboard for voice typing, Google Gboard remains one of the best options.

And remember: if you still want to look for an alternative keyboard to Google voice typing, use your best judgment to determine what trade-offs you’re willing to accept so that you make the best decision for your needs.

This article originally appeared on Data Overhaulers. Read on to learn more tips to help you control your digital life.