In methods of operating a speech recognition system, a speech signal from a user is analyzed for recognizing speech information contained in the speech signal. When situated in an active receive mode, an acknowledgement of receive activity is produced in response to an inquiry about the receive activity from a user. In another embodiment, before speech data including at least a portion of the speech signal and/or at least a portion of the speech information are transmitted from an internal user-controlled area into an external area, the respective speech data are filtered and/or a message is sent to the user that a transmission of the speech data to the external area is imminent.