Apple Contractors Listened to 1,000+ Siri Recordings Per Shift

[lsutigerfan1976]

These ppl from Amazon and Apple listening to my conversations would be bored as hell. Lol.

 

[s15119]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't really see this as an issue that concerns me.
[doublepost=1566615308][/doublepost]People: Oh my goodness, can't you make Siri work better
Same People: Oh my, people listen when I talk to Siri.

People are confusing.

 

[StyxMaker]

If someone listens to a 1,000+ Siri Recordings Per Shift, they don't really care who and what they say.

Especially since they are not given any information about from where the recording came, or by whom it was recorded.
[doublepost=1566616200][/doublepost]

The point is they weren't up front about it and beat the privacy drum and chide the competition about privacy yet they have contractors also listening the same way? On top of that Siri is miles behind those other assistants. Insult to injury if you ask me.

Since the recordings were anonymized no ones privacy was violated. One of the jobs I had before I retired involved creating anonymized data sets of the patients the organization treated for statistical analysis. All within the HIPPA privacy regulations. And, no, he patients were never told or asked for their permission.

 

[Jimmy Bubbles]

I know there has been way too many times that my phone’s Siri has been activated, when I didn’t even say “Hey Siri”.

 

[StyxMaker]

I know there has been way too many times that my phone’s Siri has been activated, when I didn’t even say “Hey Siri”.

I turned ‘hey Siri’ off, every time someone on television used any form of the word ‘serious’ Siri would pop up and ask me what I waned.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

I do find it odd that Apple promotes privacy and yet does stuff like this. It kind of disappoints me because I sincerely hope they are not like the others but when stuff like this surfaces, it makes me lack confidence.

And before anyone says it's in the small print somewhere, it's the principle that matters. If you are going to brag about it, make damn sure that you follow it up.

Apple has always said that Siri is recorded for analysis since the 4s launch. I remember a few reports back then about Siri audio. Not to mention each reordering is assigned a randomized identifier that will be immediately deleted if you toggle Siri off. They actually had a very good system in anonymizing the recordings. It wasn't a big deal back then because privacy and tracking weren't as much on everyone's mind as it is right now.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

I personally don't see this as a big deal. But it's funny to see the huge contrast of concern when Apple is outed vs other companies like Amazon or Google.

 

[pweicks]

I shut off all my analytics a few weeks ago after I saw all these articles coming out. I bet Apple saw a pretty big dip in customers opted into analytics after all this crap started coming out.

 

[macfacts]

Apple has always said that Siri is recorded for analysis since the 4s launch. I remember a few reports back then about Siri audio. Not to mention each reordering is assigned a randomized identifier that will be immediately deleted if you toggle Siri off. They actually had a very good system in anonymizing the recordings. It wasn't a big deal back then because privacy and tracking weren't as much on everyone's mind as it is right now.

Putting aside the fact anonymity and privacy are seperate things, what if the voice recording was of a famous person with a very recognizable voice? Not anonymous in that situation.

 

[sinoka56]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't really see this as an issue that concerns me.
[doublepost=1566615308][/doublepost]People: Oh my goodness, can't you make Siri work better
Same People: Oh my, people listen when I talk to Siri.

People are confusing.

I guess you’re not concerned about false advertisement, from Apple’s what happens in your phone stays in your phone.

 

[techfreak23]

Canadian accents are distinguishable from American ones, eh?

They definitely are and not even because of the “eh” or the “aboot...”

 

[alexhardaker]

Can I just say this is a huge load of ********? Nobody actually reads the terms of use. It’s clearly stated that Siri recordings are listened to by Apple and Apple Contractors. Let’s ****ing stop feeding into the media’s ******** please.
[doublepost=1566602499][/doublepost]


Just FYI these are TOU for iCloud, not for Siri. Go back and read the Siri TOU. Apple is very clear that recordings are sent to Apple and analyzed by contractors.

Once again, I’ll repeat. You pressed “I Accept”. Have you ACTUALLY read the Software Licensing Agreement? I think you’d be surprised how transparent Apple is.

Huh. There it is right there on page 3 in BOLD;



This is old news. Can we quit with the necroposting?

https://bgr.com/2015/03/13/siri-recording-voice-conversations/

Thank you, you saved me a job

 

[macfacts]

I'm not an expert on exactly how iCloud handles end-to-end encryption, but I suspect it's something like this:

• Each device connected to an iCloud account uses a unique public-private key pair. The private keys always remain on the device.
• Each device registers their public key with the iCloud account.
• When sending data from one device to another, the data is encrypted using the sender's key, stored on iCloud using the cloud key, then sent to the receiver's device using the receiver's key.

End-to-end encryption. This is exactly how SSH works, except multiple (more than two) parties are involved in a single transaction instead of just two parties. And this fits with the language that the data is "protected with a key derived from information unique to your device" because you can't transfer public-private keys to another device and have them work without some effort. Each device has a unique signature that the key is validated against. iCloud likely does the validation as part of the process.

Public-private key authentication is very common, and iCloud likely employs it between all authorized devices.

The iCloud encryption happens on apples servers, that means the private keys are on apples servers. Not much protection when the gov comes by with a warrant.

 

[alexhardaker]

Am I the only person who thought this was happening, right from the beginning? Didn't somebody say it in the first launch? Every time I've spoken to Siri I've done so under the assumption that 'this conversation is being recorded for training purposes'.

Yes, I think this too. Weren’t people curious as to why Siri had to connect to the internet to be used when it came with the iPhone 4S? I might go watch that keynote to see what they say.
[doublepost=1566620441][/doublepost]

Why can’t these companies just use any speech audio to improve speech recognition? That’s what I don’t understand. Not sure why they have to invade privacy of users to improve speech AI.

Good point! Apple does this with photos, so why not Siri too?

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Putting aside the fact anonymity and privacy are seperate things, what if the voice recording was of a famous person with a very recognizable voice? Not anonymous in that situation.

I don't know if there are any voices that are unique. A lot of voices are famous but in almost every case there would be some voice actors who can duplicate it.

 

[Jsameds]

Everyone acting like they’re upset but they’re the ones that didn’t read the T&C’s

 

[PorkPump]

Mostly...

Well sometimes..

LOL at everyone that says iPhones are so secure.

You are a JOKE for thinking that.

 

[iRutherford]

Apple's dedication to privacy is the reason why Siri is so bad and why it will never get better. Commendable, but very limiting for them.

 

[zv470]

This should be opt in.
I would opt in to help make Siri better.

What I have problem with is Facebook using AI to record all Messenger conversations as text.

 

[ani4ani]

You're pointing to old information from iOS 8.

Have YOU actually read the current Privacy Policy or the SLA for iOS 12? There is no mention of Siri collecting personal information.

....has anyone tried to not accept Apples T&C’s during setup...see how far that gets you.

 

[TeeHawkZ32]

Everyone acting like they’re upset but they’re the ones that didn’t read the T&C’s

Or like it mattered to them in the first place. Like any one of them made an effort to inform themselves about the issue before buying the phone in the first place.

 

[ipedro]

Agreed but the point is, Apple shouts from the roof tops about privacy and how 'What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone' - That's the point.

We’ve always known that Siri was not processed on the phone and was sent to the cloud. I thought it was obvious that random samples were used to help improve the AI.

 

[itsmilo]

Sounds like one awful job tbh

Canadian accents are distinguishable from American ones, eh?

of course, all you need to say is „about“ and boom ... Canadian detected. Abuuuuuut

 

[alexhardaker]

Haha wow, just watched the 4S Siri introduction. Twice Phil made the comment about servers on Apple’s side. Just mentions that it’s sent there and that Apple has software on their servers that helps Siri work:

I’m sure I learned a lot more about it when it first came out. This keynote hardly has anything about what happens with your voice data.

 

[quaresma]

So what.

Yeah “so what” when its Apple. When Google or Microsoft do it, all hell breaks loose.