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

[apolloa]

Now this’ll be interesting, using a child in the case will certainly give it some justification, Apple will look pretty bad publicly on this, people can argue a child’s requests were recorded and listened to parties other then Apple, and as stated that’s not in the terms and conditions.

This is where Apples mantra of ‘we will tell you how to use our products and what you need and want’ shows weakness.
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I guess there are separate lawsuits. There surely was a crapton of lawsuits about Alexa listening in on people, or Ring's AI being powered by subcontractors. But you know how media work, nobody is droning about news three weeks old, and lawsuits are typically slooooow.

Google is opt in for people listening to your requests, Amazon tell you when you set up Alexa your requests are recorded and you can opt out when you set it up, or at any other time.
I’ve no idea about Microsoft, but Apple is the one that didn’t you give you any choice. Plus this site isn’t going to report if Google or Amazon have been sued, but those cases would be harder to win due to the policies of google and Amazon.

It’s a necessity anyway, that’s why I called BS on Apples mis leading privacy ad campaign, the only way to improve AI is to teach it, hence the listening and surveying aspect, trouble is the other services actually have and do improve, Siri goes no where and remains rubbish...

 

[apolloa]

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.

Yes this is interesting, this site reported the privacy ad campaign was about to start here in Europe in Germany, I wonder if that’s been pulled as the EU will come down on them hard for mis leading advertising which it is.
That could be used I guess as evidence in this case? Against Apple.

 

[Zachsch22]

I wonder in these pointless lawsuits where they never win how the lawyers actual make any money?

 

[MacBH928]

I hate that Apple does this, but at least they are up and very clear that these recordings are stored on their servers. For that reason I can not use Siri, because I don't want my audio recordings stored in some company servers for anyone to copy, hack, or enjoy listening to or maybe sold. Talk about being creepy...

Apple probably shot themselves with all the "Whats on your phone stays on your phone" with this...

 

[YaBe]

I am sure Tim Apple and the bunch of apologist will still find a way to spin this in their favour... you know ...like the battery issue...

 

[Solomani]

This lawsuit is going nowhere.

Intentional, yes (even Apple admits to doing it). Unlawful…. hmm… depends on the TOS. Which no one reads.

 

[FlyGuyDEN]

All of that quality assurance work and Siri is still comically bad at understanding what she's asked.

Yes, this.

 

[Krizoitz]

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

It is opt in, when you set up your phone it asks if you want to enable Siri or not. You can say no. You can turn off Siri. You can never use Siri and your voice will never be captured.

The ONLY way to improve voice recognition is to compare what the algorithm THINKS you said with what you ACTUALLY said. The only way to do that comparison is to have a person capable of understanding the language in question, listen to the recording and compare it to the output of the algorithm. There is no other way for it to work, not just from a technological standpoint but from a logical one.

For privacy and practical reasons Apple doesn't listen to every single Siri conversation. The conversations it does listen to are decoupled from the associated AppleID (at least thats what Apple claims, they could perhaps be lying, but it would be a stupid thing to do and that would be a bigger issue than the listening). Assuming Apple is being honest about that, then you've got random people listening to random conversations. Which is necessary for Apple to improve Siri. So Siri is listening and sometimes those conversations include personal details, not because Apple linked them, but because the person speaking said them. Theres not a lot Apple can do about that. They can TRY to train the algorithms to recognize personally identifiable information and exclude those kind of clips, but the algorithms ability to recognize that would mean Siri is really really advanced, which its probably not at this point. So from time to time random clips of Siri recordings are going to be listened to that contain personal information, its really not avoidable.

So why not just let people opt out but still use Siri? Well, it sounds like Apple is going to do that, but its a PR move not a product quality move. Its meant to assuage people who are outraged over something they agreed to in the first place and is a natural consequence of using Siri (or similar). So now that they are going to allow it, whats the problem? The problem is the more people who opt out, the smaller the pool of data is going to become, and the less randomized it will become, and the less ability to improve Siri there will be. Now at first, if only a handful of people drop out, its not going to likely have an impact, but the more people who drop out, the more they are dependent on the people who don't. But both groups of people are going to benefit from the work being done by an increasingly fewer number of participants. Paranoid people who overreacted to a non-story are going to become a drain on the system, hopefully not enough to impact the product improvement overall but possibly. So its potentially damaging from a practical standpoint.

If you are worried about Siri recording you, thats fair, some people value that kind of privacy highly and I have no problem with that, I don't have an Echo or an Alexa for that very reason, I don't trust Google/Amazon with my privacy like I do Apple, and some people don't trust any of them. HOWEVER, if thats the case, if you don't trust these systems, then you should not USE them. This is not the case of listening being an optional but not necessary component, this is a case of a necessary component being limited by people who want all the advantages without paying any price and expecting others to do it for them. Its selfish.

So by all means, opt out, its not hard to do, you just turn off Siri. You've had that option since day 1.

 

[latts]

"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.

It would need to be personal information that could identify you directly to someone else for it to be considered GDPR compliant and also that only applies in Europe

 

[tarsins]

Yay, it's the weekly "Apple being sued" news item, also know as the "Hey guys, let's try and make money out of this" article.

 

[tito2020]

Woot! Also Microsoft is getting in trouble for it now.... What I really want revealed is who are these "contractor" companies that got to listen to our recordings? Is the government included in that pool of "contractors"?

I don't use either one skype,Siri,Google to talk I rather search manually on internet.

 

[Glideslope]

Guess they should have read the terms of service better...

Ah, so you're suggesting an enduser should actually understand the agreement they are entering into prior to clicking "I agree" and begin using the product? I admirer your courage in attempting to point out the obvious. Unfortunately you're expectation far outweighs the ability of the Human Race in it's current state of evolution.

 

[JosephAW]

Since upgrading from iOS 10 to iOS 12 on my 7+ Siri hasn't been working very well for dictation. I press the mic button and nothing happens so I press it again and nothing so I press it again and finally ding dong ding fail. So at least they can't listen in. iOS 10 worked so must faster and constantly with dictation. Starting to regret updating.

 

[Phil A.]

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".

From the article

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.

So, it looks from that like they were sent irrespective of whether you opted out of helping apple during setup

 

[dantroline]

I am sure Tim Apple and the bunch of apologist will still find a way to spin this in their favour... you know ...like the battery issue...

Well if Apple were a person, it'd be screaming about victimisation and being singled out and bullied while completely denying that it is at fault.

 

[ios-dan]

I really don't understand this.

How else is Siri going to get better? You need humans to listen, with human ears that understand langauge, to evaluate words / phrases to help Siri get better at it. It's not going to happen in a vacuum. You can't just write some algorithm and hope that Siri magically gets better at language recognition. You need human evaluators to prove that Siri's analysis is correct.

Should Apple have kept that in-house, instead of contracting it? Surely. That would've been good.

But to suggest that no human ears should've been listening to Siri requests - to evaluate Siri's analysis - just isn't reasonable.

 

[robbietop]

It's in the fine print of all the big tech companies. They may record some for "Quality Assurance Purposes". It'll get thrown out.

 

[ctdonath]

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.

It does.
Unless, obviously, you agree to share your data for developer & testing purposes.

 

[kaycrystal626]

I wonder if Google or Amazon will face the same problem.

 

[YaBe]

I wonder if Google or Amazon will face the same problem.

At least they have the decency not to tell you that they care about your privacy

 

[Defthand]

Guess they should have read the terms of service better...

Why should anyone when Apple has giant billboards assuring everyone that their privacy isn't compromised?

 

[Dirtfarmer]

LOL. Didn't they literally JUST try to rebrand themselves as a privacy-oriented company?

Too bad the marketing people (and their Accounting King CEO) don't talk to Operations.

Hence my ongoing campaign for Apple to #FIRETHEACCOUNTANT

 

[Mikey44]

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.

I doubt that it will only allow those who have personal devices paired to summon it. I imagine it will work more like the Google Home and Alexa in those regards. But I have no insider information.

 

[Suckfest 9001]

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.

lmao yeah right. you're just being an opportunist for the cash reward, you don't give two ***** about this "violation" (even though it's clearly in the TOS, this case is going literally nowhere)
[doublepost=1565295261][/doublepost]Literally on the Siri settings page, there's a link to a popup with the following text:

By using Siri or Dictation, you agree and consent to Apple’s and its subsidiaries’ and agents’ transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of this information, including your voice input data and Siri Data, to provide and improve Siri and dictation functionality in Apple products and services.

Can't wait until this gets thrown out the minute it gets into a court room. Also currently loving all of the "OMG MUH PRIVACY" people who clearly just click "I Accept" on everything without reading it.

 

[ersan191]

1st: Siri is activated on command, so not on all the time.

2nd: Google is always listening, yet no lawsuit.

3rd: They should have disclosed this issue from the start.

Google is not always listening I’m so tired of this nonsense.