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from the I-heard-what-you-did-last-summer dept.
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, Informative) by shortscreen on Saturday July 27 2019, @08:52PM (1 child)
If Apple's doohickey is recording all this stuff and they have the data, it could be a juicy target for subpoenas and wiretap orders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @02:35PM
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