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Siri Records Fights, Doctor's Appointments, and Sex (and Contractors Hear It)

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday July 27 2019, @01:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-heard-what-you-did-last-summer dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/siri-records-fights-doctors-appointments-and-sex-and-contractors-hear-it/

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.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @02:30PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @02:30PM (#871923)

    Lets see what's that less than 1%:

         430 M (2018) daily Siri activations
      *  0.01 recordings sent to contractors for review (1%)
    ____________________________________________________
      = 4.3 M recordings sent to contractors for listening and review every day

    I'm rite?

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @02:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @02:35PM (#871927)

    Almost. 4.3m - 1 to make it less than 1%.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @02:54PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @02:54PM (#871935)

    I don't think Apple is willing to employ that many mechanical turks.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @05:29PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @05:29PM (#872023)

      How much would it cost Apple daily to hire 1000 vietnamese slaves contractors to review 1000 audio clips of 15 seconds?
      And as a % of their revenue?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @08:39PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @08:39PM (#872081)
        Each worker must know specific languages well enough to understand all the accents that are used. Google, iirc, uses teams of nationals of each country where the device is sold.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @09:36AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @09:36AM (#872566)

          Sure, the same they do with their audio reCaptcha?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday July 27 2019, @04:35PM (1 child)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 27 2019, @04:35PM (#871997) Journal

    If you believe their figures, which you can't verify.

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @05:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 27 2019, @05:19PM (#872017)

      There are over 500 million Siri enabled devices. An *average* of 1 Siri activation per day per user doesn't seem too out of whack, so neither the 430 millions.
      But you are absolutely right.