Voice assistants are growing in popularity, but the technology has been experiencing a parallel rise in concerns about privacy and accuracy. Apple's Siri is the latest to enter this gray space of tech. This week, The Guardian reported that contractors who review Siri recordings for accuracy and to help make improvements may be hearing personal conversations.
One of the contract workers told The Guardian that Siri did sometimes record audio after mistaken activations. The wake word is the phrase "hey Siri," but the anonymous source said that it could be activated by similar-sounding words or with the noise of a zipper. They also said that when an Apple Watch is raised and speech is detected, Siri will automatically activate.
"There have been countless instances of recordings featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on," the source said. "These recordings are accompanied by user data showing location, contact details, and app data."
Apple has said that it takes steps to protect users from being connected with the recordings sent to contractors. The audio is not linked to an Apple ID and less than 1% of daily Siri activations are reviewed. It also sets confidentiality requirements for those contract workers. We reached out to Apple for further comment and will update the story if we receive it.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday July 27 2019, @02:10PM (7 children)
True but up until now I hadn't thought of saying shit into The Roomie's phone just to fuck with the guys who have to listen to it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by BsAtHome on Saturday July 27 2019, @02:33PM (5 children)
You can also build a Lenny [toao.net] machine to keep on spewing junk.
Would that get you banned from Siri or Alexa or google? That could be an interesting test. How much junk do you need to send to the cloud before the cloud comes raining down on you.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 27 2019, @05:43PM (2 children)
Reminds me of 20 years ago when we used to troll the NSA by putting keywords in our sigs...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Saturday July 27 2019, @08:22PM (1 child)
Hm, I still do! Both troll the NSA and put keywords on my webpages.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 27 2019, @11:15PM
I think it was when Echelon hit the news...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Sunday July 28 2019, @02:04AM
From the summary:
So have at it! If Apple blocks you, they lied.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday July 28 2019, @04:15AM
Lenny's predecessor...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=telecrapper+2000 [duckduckgo.com]
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @03:46PM
Read some choice passages from a few murder mystery novels mixed in with BDSM with porn playing in the background