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Apple Facing Lawsuit for 'Unlawful and Intentional' Recording of Confidential Siri Requests Without User Consent

I think the trigger word could be changed.. in addition

The word "Hey" or siri is all too common now. The trouble is there are only so many words. and when you think you found the right one, people will start using it.

So all your doing is moving the problem, elsewhere. (perhaps people should start thinking before they mention the trigger word)
 
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macmikey2 said:
"The plaintiffs in the case, one of whom is a minor, claim to own an iPhone XR and an iPhone 6 that they would not have purchased had they known that their Siri recordings were stored for evaluation."

Ummm, I call BS on this statement. Show me one minor who would say no to an XR. And thats even if they knew about the recordings.

More money grabbing from Apple over something this lame. Sure they may have recorded stuff accidentally, but there is no way I can believe that someone would actually say..."wait, it accidentally might, maybe, sometimes record something? I don't care, give me the phone..."

Sigh, what a screwed up world we live in.
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The story is too perfect. Yes Apple screwed up royally but this lawsuit is money hungry.
 
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Jyby said:
Nah it has legs to stand on. It's like if another company said the only way to turn this product on is X, but they didn't tell you method Y or Z could trigger something you don't want.
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That makes no sense. The whole point of the program is to determine if there are false positives and exclude the causes.
 
Zaft said:
That was quick.
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I think it's disgusting that people feel it necessary to jump to a lawsuit as if somehow they've been intentionally victimized by Apple.

Apple has already shown to take swift action to correct what was happening with contractors. Isn't that enough?

Zero empathy from me. Had Apple _not_ taken such quick action, then I'd say sure... go for a lawsuit.

Equally disgusting is how people turn to publicly reporting the issue rather than contacting the company directly first. I'm sure, given the current situation of privacy in our world, Apple would have been just as quick to take action. Public reporting was unnecessary in my opinion.

One word comes to mind... entitlement.
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sir1963nz said:
"What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone" ... apparently not.

Apple has made HUGE statements about privacy, "Privacy is King" , and it turns out that is 'misleading' at best.

Will I opt-in, nope because you have shown that you are no more trustworthy than any other company when it suits you.
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When you setup your phone, it asks you if you want to "help Apple by sending data"... and you have the option of declining. When you decline, your Siri requests are not included in the anonymous submissions. Or am I wrong about this?

So I think Apple has been very transparent about this, putting control into the hands of users. They were not doing anything "sneaky".
 
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MacRumors said:



Apple is facing a class action lawsuit [PDF] for employing contractors to listen to and grade some anonymized Siri conversations for the purpose of quality control and product improvement.

Apple's Siri practices were highlighted in a recent report where one of the contractors claimed that Apple employees evaluating Siri recordings often hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and other private information when Siri is activated accidentally.

hey-siri-800x350.jpg

The lawsuit, filed in a Northern California court today (and shared by CNBC's Kif Leswing), accuses Apple of "unlawful and intentional recording of individuals' confidential communications without their consent," violating California privacy laws when accidental Siri activations are recorded and evaluated by humans.As outlined in its privacy policies, Apple collects some anonymized Siri recordings for the purpose of improving Siri and, presumably, cutting down on accidental Siri activations. These recordings are analyzed by humans and can include details recorded when Siri mishears a "Hey Siri" trigger word.

The lawsuit claims that Apple has not informed consumers that they are "regularly being recorded without consent," though it also highlights Apple's privacy policy where Apple does state that such data can be used for improving its services.

The plaintiffs in the case, one of whom is a minor, claim to own an iPhone XR and an iPhone 6 that they would not have purchased had they known that their Siri recordings were stored for evaluation. The plaintiffs are seeking class action status for all individuals who were recorded by a Siri device without their consent from October 12, 2011 to the present.

The lawsuit asks for Apple to obtain consent before recording a minor's Siri interactions, to delete all existing recordings, and to prevent unauthorized recordings in the future. It also asks for $5,000 in damages per violation.

Apple has suspended its Siri evaluation program right now as it reviews the processes that are in place in light of the contractor's claims. Prior to the suspension of the program, Apple said that a small, random subset (less than 1%) of daily Siri requests are analyzed for improving Siri and dictation, with requests not associated with a user's Apple ID.

Apple in the future plans to release a software update that will let Siri users opt out of having their Siri queries included in the evaluation process, something that's not possible at the current time. All collected Siri data can be cleared from an iOS device by turning Siri off and then on again, while accidental recordings can be stopped by disabling "Hey Siri."

Article Link: Apple Facing Lawsuit for 'Unlawful and Intentional' Recording of Confidential Siri Requests Without User Consent
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More nut jobs trying to find money in anything they think they can get their pathetic hands on.
 
macmikey2 said:
"The plaintiffs in the case, one of whom is a minor, claim to own an iPhone XR and an iPhone 6 that they would not have purchased had they known that their Siri recordings were stored for evaluation."

Ummm, I call BS on this statement. Show me one minor who would say no to an XR. And thats even if they knew about the recordings.

More money grabbing from Apple over something this lame. Sure they may have recorded stuff accidentally, but there is no way I can believe that someone would actually say..."wait, it accidentally might, maybe, sometimes record something? I don't care, give me the phone..."

Sigh, what a screwed up world we live in.
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Agreed. This is likely manipulation by an adult, either a parent or lawyer or both. All of the kids I've seen with Apple devices don't really care about their privacy. They just want to play games, share content, etc. It's not until you reach older years that you start to truly understand the implications of your activities online. That's why it's up to parents to protect children.... that's their role and responsibility, not the child's.

Entitlement, plain and simple.
 
Apple should actually just take this lawsuit and lose it on purpose... this would help open up precedent to destroy google lol
 
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Really another lawsuit. And how did they come to $5000 per violation. One way to hit these on the head is if you lose you have to pay Apple’s legal costs. Might stop a lot of the money grabbers. Also yes for me Siri has occasionally woke and without the wake word. But seems to work very well for me even with my Australian accent.
 
I’ve accidentally triggered “hey Siri” one time. Talking to a friend named Ciera. BUT I have pulled my phone out of my pocket to find Siri on because the button was pushed, hundreds(probably tens) of times.
 
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MacRumors said:
The plaintiffs in the case, one of whom is a minor, claim to own an iPhone XR and an iPhone 6 that they would not have purchased had they known that their Siri recordings were stored for evaluation. The plaintiffs are seeking class action status for all individuals who were recorded by a Siri device without their consent from October 12, 2011 to the present.
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Shouldn't the people who are part of this lawsuit prove that they were, in fact, recorded without their consent?
 
You guys can do your part by complaining to the FTC about apples misleading ads. What happens in your iPhone doesn't stay on your iPhone.
 
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I had to turn off "Hey Siri" for my HomePod because it would constantly randomly start answering an unknown question almost every time my wife and I were having a conversation near it. So yeah they definitely got some recordings of us that we didn't know about.
 
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Khedron said:
1% of requests, not customers. So if you've asked Siri 50 requests* you've probably been listened to.

*or accidentally activated
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Didn't Apple brag how many billions of requests Siri handles a day? 1% of that is staggering.

This privacy violation was done without customer consent. This case has legs.
Will be interesting to see how the contractor was controlling employees' adherence to privacy. Clearly the whistleblower was more concerned at the high turnover and lack of privacy in this situation.
I'm looking forward to any Discovery revelations in this case.
 
I am the first to hate frivolous lawsuits but this one will have legs. I can’t speak for the money requested as that is a game played.

First big issue is having a minor involved. Rules are different on their ability to give consent to a contract. Second is the privacy issue of Apple capturing and listening to what they shouldn’t.

Again, I hate that this will get settled this way. I wish that regulators would have been ahead of it. Amazon, Google, Facebook and others are just as guilty.

Apple could have hired their own people to continually test Siri in a controlled setting. Instead they chose to use real data as test data.

This will be an important case that I’m guessing will move forward and could end up at the Supreme Court. Someone was bound to test this. Hopefully Apple will switch to opt-in in the meantime.
 
uajafd said:
"Apple in the future plans to release a software update that will let Siri users opt out of having their Siri queries included in the evaluation process, something that's not possible at the current time."

Not nearly good. This should be opt-in, not opt-out. Also, I imagine this is some grounds for a GDPR lawsuit.

I also read the whole privacy statement displayed when you try to enable Siri. Nowhere in it does it say that humans listen to snippets of your conversations.
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You must not have read very well then. I found it in seconds.
 
Mikey44 said:
There's a few different things regarding this. iPhone can be isolated to your voice, and your voice alone for the trigger phrase. Homepod isn't able to isolate voices yet. It's coming in Homepod OS 13. Once it launches you'll be able to train it to the different voices in your home and provide personal requests to each user in it's system. However, I highly doubt that they intend to only allow it accept requests from those voices in it's database. Google Home has a similar functionality, but is still able to be triggered by various videos.

The Homepod is a 'public' facing device meaning that it can be used by anyone in the home. So if iJustine did come over, she'd be able to use your Homepod as well, she wouldn't be able to use your device for personal requests though. Just the basics that Siri does, music, lights, timers, etc.

That's my understanding anyways.
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You're correct. iPhone and iPad, as personal devices, need to be trained for your voice.

HomePod, as a shared device, is not tuned to any voice recognition, even activating when anything I’m watching on tv or YouTube contains the phrase.

I’m curious, with the personalization coming in iOS 13, whether it will only respond to the voices of those with personal devices paired, or if it will still respond to all but use voice recognition to enable personalized music and other activities like reminders and messages.
 
uajafd said:
"Apple in the future plans to release a software update that will let Siri users opt out of having their Siri queries included in the evaluation process, something that's not possible at the current time."

Not nearly good. This should be opt-in, not opt-out. Also, I imagine this is some grounds for a GDPR lawsuit.

I also read the whole privacy statement displayed when you try to enable Siri. Nowhere in it does it say that humans listen to snippets of your conversations.
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It says they are reviewed. And it mentions third parties. When I read the privacy statement for it it was pretty clear to me.
 
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