Playstation 5 will record voice conversations. With arrival of the latest 8.0 update to PS4, some users this morning found themselves “unpleasantly” surprised by the appearance of an information message specifying that their voice conversations might be being recorded, apparently for moderation purposes. A feature that was initially not included among the release notes of this update, it will be one of the first changes coming with PS5.
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So, after a few hours of confusion, Sony has finally come clarified exactly what this new feature refers to, and to what extent our privacy may or may not be compromised on its official blog.
“Following this update, users are seeing a notification about Party Safety and that voice chats in parties may be recorded. Voice chat recording for moderation is a feature that will be available on PS5 when it launches, and will enable users to record their voice chats on PS5 and submit them for moderation review. The pop up you’re seeing on PS4 right now is to let you know that when you participate in a chat with a PS5 user (post-launch), they may submit those recordings from their PS5 console to SIE” officials stated.
On a simpler level, it seems that from this moment on, whenever we join a voice chat, both in the current generation and in the next console, our conversations will be recorded and stored. However, it does not appear that Sony is actively listening to any of these recorded conversations from users, unlike other platforms, limiting their review to cases where users request moderation by reporting some type of abuse from other participants.
Playstation 5 will record voice conversations, although this is an invasive method, given that in theory everything we say in these voice chats (we know that conversations with friends can result in truly terrible transcripts) could be sent to Sony at any time, it is undoubtedly a quite useful tool to promote a more innocuous gaming environment, as well as a good help for those suffering from this untraceable cyberbullying.
