Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc. have been hit with a lawsuit claiming they violate California privacy and consumer protection laws by secretly recording snippets of individuals' conversations and having workers listen to them to improve the functionality of products that use Google Assistant.

Google Assistant-enabled devices, including mobile phones and tablets using the Android operating system, Google Home speakers, smart displays, cars, TVs, and laptops, listen for two sets of so-called hot words—“Hey Google” and “Okay Google”—to detect user commands. Those commands, in turn, cause the devices to do things such as play certain music or videos, search the internet for information, or set timers.

According to the lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by lawyers at San Francisco's Lexington Law Group, New York's Scott+Scott, and Lowey Dannenberg in White Plains, New York, thousands of Google employees have listened to recordings to improve Google Assistant's listening accuracy. According to the complaint, each Google Assistant recording creates a corresponding transcript. The complaint cites a Belgian media report which claims Google uses employees to check the transcripts against the individual recordings, including those that do not include any hot words, and those involving children who cannot consent to Google's recording.

“Had Plaintiffs known that their communications would be recorded, they would not have purchased a Google Assistant Enabled Device,” the complaint says. “Plaintiffs and the Class members have a property interest in any recordings of their communications. By surreptitiously recording the plaintiffs' and class members' communications, Google has taken property from plaintiffs and the class members without providing just or any compensation,” the complaint continues.

Lexington Law Group's Mark Todzo wasn't immediately available for comment Friday morning.

Google representatives didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

In a post to the company's blog on July 11, Google product manager David Monsees wrote that less than 0.2% of all recorded audio snippets are reviewed by the company's language experts to improve product performance. “Audio snippets are not associated with user accounts as part of the review process, and reviewers are directed not to transcribe background conversations or other noises, and only to transcribe snippets that are directed to Google,” he wrote. In the July 10 report from Belgian media outlet VRT NWS, journalists were able to identify recorded individuals and playback leaked audio recordings they identified as themselves and their loved ones.

Thursday's lawsuit seeks to bring claims under California's Invasion of Privacy Act, Unfair Competition Act, and Consumer Legal Remedies Act and to certify a class of all individuals who were recorded by a Google Assistant Enabled Device without their consent going back to at least May 18, 2016. The suit seeks to force Google to delete all recordings of class members, to stop recording consumers without consent, and to build in functionality to its products to prevent further recording without consent.

Google has been hit with at least one more class action complaint in Illinois state court stemming from the Google Assistant recordings.