Contractors Working on Siri 'Regularly' Hear Recordings of Drug Deals, Private Medical Info and More Claims Apple Employee

[I7guy]

Why not? The die hard Apple fanboys have taken more on faith with similar reports about Samsung, Google/Android, and anything else that isn't Apple.

While I like Apple's offerings (mostly), even the MacBook Pro I'm typing on with it's incessant need for clean keys, I do not and have never subscribed to the myth that Apple is way above-board when it comes to privacy as compared to others. I think they do as the others do.

My opinion, is Apple lays out everything clearly in their TOS. You may have to dig to find out what the policies are but these policies are there.

The "whistleblowing" of this contractor, which isn't whistleblowing" at all, probably will have some serious ramifications for that department and it should.

 

[DoctorTech]

So you don’t want an Amazon worker who’s had to sign an NDA contract to listen to what you ask Alexa to do, if you have the option set to allow them to do that, and you can view what it’s heard and delete it.

But if you use Siri your happy for some contractor, who has had little vetting and not signed an NDA contract I’m guessing, to listen to your recordings, which you cannot opt out of, nor see what it’s recorded, not delete those recordings. PURELY because it’s Apple!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Wow that’s some totally blind unconditional dedication to a corporation you’ve sold out to there!!....

I mean the company has been heavily advertising its privacy stance, with the slogan ‘what’s on your iPhone stays on your iphone’, yet it seems they have been doing quite the opposite to that, in effect performing false or misleading advertising, but you still rather trust them over the others?

I really am struggling to understand the reasoning behind this.

I suspect the Apple contractors probably did sign some sort of NDA but I cannot prove that. From personal experience, my teenage daughter was having a drama queen moment telling a story about something that had happened during her day and when she said "I thought I was going to die..." Alexa interrupted and asked if she needed assistance. I was sitting in the room when it happened and I heard it for myself although attempts to replicate that response were unsuccessful (yes, I know if it was programmed to give that response then saying the same words should produce the same response, I can't explain why I could not replicate it but my daughter, my wife and I all 3 heard it). Then there was the recent incident where Alexa may very well have saved a woman's life by calling the local sheriff but nobody can explain exactly what was said to trigger the intervention

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-alexa-credited-possibly-lifesaving-911-call/

Then there was the creepy laugh that was reported by numerous people coming from an Amazon echo https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/07/amazon-is-fixing-alexa-creepy-laughter/

And the recent incident of an Amazon Echo reportedly verbally abusing a user after they cancelled Amazon Music
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019...xa-insults-owner-who-wanted-cancel-membership

So yeah, I do trust Siri more than Alexa but that is personal preference.

 

[inkswamp]

Yeap considering Apple is false advertising I would think Apple doesn’t have its contractors sign NDA’s, the fact one of them was interviewed for this article proved that, thought that was obvious?
My argument stands and it’s sad for anyone to defend Apple on this..

Your argument is weak and without merit. The two things that make it clear:

1) You're attempting to manipulate me into defending Apple which I am not. I'm simply asking for evidence to support the claims these guys are making. So far, I've seen big claims and no evidence (what we have in this article is hearsay.) Pointing that fact out is not a defense of Apple.

2) You (and others) are bolstering an apparent willingness to believe these claims with more claims that lack evidence. You can keep piling claims on top of claims, but without some evidence, it's empty chatter that does nothing more than reveal your own biases.

For example, do you have evidence that Apple doesn't ask contractors to sign NDAs? Where have you heard that? If you haven't, why would you state it unequivocally like that? I would be incredibly surprised to hear that they don't impose NDAs on contractors doing work for them but I'm open to that if you have evidence. You're making the claim (not me) so it's on you to prove it. Until then, I'm skeptical and see no reason to believe any of this.

Note: further responses from you that lack actual, concrete evidence to back up what you're saying will be ignored.
[doublepost=1564350288][/doublepost]

Considering how big apple is, how many employees the have, and how much they earn, seems ludicrous they would farm sensitive user data to a third party contractor. What exactly are we paying for?

Yep. Remember back when Samsung was pulling all kinds of publicity stunts (fake protests in front of Apple stores, YouTube vids of iPhones bending in peoples' pockets, etc.) and spreading false news about Apple? For some reason, this story is setting off alarms for that. This all sounds like a load of bunk. I'm open to believing it if someone can produce actual evidence that it's true, but at this point, it's a claim from a questionable source in the first place. I'm not buying it without proof.
[doublepost=1564350434][/doublepost]

Siri has gone off sometimes without anyone saying anything I think once, so maybe some music might have triggered it, but Saturday I was just double checking the MAC addresses I was putting in DHCP reservation in my new router, so I was reading them out loud to myself and Siri said "I didn't catch that" when I said A8 which sounds nothing like 'hey Siri' Not sure I like the response Siri gives to "Hey Siri stop spying on me" as the reply is "nope"

We discovered at my job that if someone says "iSeries" (the name of an old IBM database system), it triggers iPhones with "Hey Siri" enabled.

 

[apolloa]

Your argument is weak and without merit. The two things that make it clear:

1) You're attempting to manipulate me into defending Apple which I am not. I'm simply asking for evidence to support the claims these guys are making. So far, I've seen big claims and no evidence (what we have in this article is hearsay.) Pointing that fact out is not a defense of Apple.

2) You (and others) are bolstering an apparent willingness to believe these claims with more claims that lack evidence. You can keep piling claims on top of claims, but without some evidence, it's empty chatter that does nothing more than reveal your own biases.

For example, do you have evidence that Apple doesn't ask contractors to sign NDAs? Where have you heard that? If you haven't, why would you state it unequivocally like that? I would be incredibly surprised to hear that they don't impose NDAs on contractors doing work for them but I'm open to that if you have evidence. You're making the claim (not me) so it's on you to prove it. Until then, I'm skeptical and see no reason to believe any of this.

Note: further responses from you that lack actual, concrete evidence to back up what you're saying will be ignored.
[doublepost=1564350288][/doublepost]

Yep. Remember back when Samsung was pulling all kinds of publicity stunts (fake protests in front of Apple stores, YouTube vids of iPhones bending in peoples' pockets, etc.) and spreading false news about Apple? For some reason, this story is setting off alarms for that. This all sounds like a load of bunk. I'm open to believing it if someone can produce actual evidence that it's true, but at this point, it's a claim from a questionable source in the first place. I'm not buying it without proof.
[doublepost=1564350434][/doublepost]

We discovered at my job that if someone says "iSeries" (the name of an old IBM database system), it triggers iPhones with "Hey Siri" enabled.

Yes you are defending Apple. The fact you refuse to believe a story in the British press, not American, says it all. You ignore the laws and regulations they have to follow... more now then ever. And that’s as a result of their previous behaviour.
So that’s my proof, the fact they cannot by law just make stories up, if they do they are wide open to litigation.

And as for proof, where’s your proof that these contractors DO sign NDA’s then eh? It works both ways.
[doublepost=1564351988][/doublepost]

I suspect the Apple contractors probably did sign some sort of NDA but I cannot prove that. From personal experience, my teenage daughter was having a drama queen moment telling a story about something that had happened during her day and when she said "I thought I was going to die..." Alexa interrupted and asked if she needed assistance. I was sitting in the room when it happened and I heard it for myself although attempts to replicate that response were unsuccessful (yes, I know if it was programmed to give that response then saying the same words should produce the same response, I can't explain why I could not replicate it but my daughter, my wife and I all 3 heard it). Then there was the recent incident where Alexa may very well have saved a woman's life by calling the local sheriff but nobody can explain exactly what was said to trigger the intervention

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-alexa-credited-possibly-lifesaving-911-call/

Then there was the creepy laugh that was reported by numerous people coming from an Amazon echo https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/07/amazon-is-fixing-alexa-creepy-laughter/

And the recent incident of an Amazon Echo reportedly verbally abusing a user after they cancelled Amazon Music
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019...xa-insults-owner-who-wanted-cancel-membership

So yeah, I do trust Siri more than Alexa but that is personal preference.

So due to personal experience then. I don’t trust a company that lies in its advertising like Apple. But we all have our different preferences
Those stories reported could be linked to computer AI glitches, I can understand why you would not trust them though.

 

[Glockworkorange]

There will be a Rene Ritchie video defending this soon. If it were Google/Facebook, he'd go *******.

And...he's got a video up.

It's about a half hour, so I haven't watched it.

 

[elmaco]

"A small, random subset (less than 1 percent) of daily Siri activations are used for grading"

Given the number of people who have an iPhone, we are talking many million conversations.

The default should be no sharing, and then Apple may try to convince people to opt-in in beta programs etc

 

[Glockworkorange]

"A small, random subset (less than 1 percent) of daily Siri activations are used for grading"

Given the number of people who have an iPhone, we are talking many million conversations.

Exactly.

 

[LordVic]

"A small, random subset (less than 1 percent) of daily Siri activations are used for grading"

Given the number of people who have an iPhone, we are talking many million conversations.

The default should be no sharing, and then Apple may try to convince people to opt-in in beta programs etc

Should be true for all the voice control stuff.

Big tech has all gotten a little too reliant on our data.

Any and all collection should always be opt in.

 

[I7guy]

Yes you are defending Apple. The fact you refuse to believe a story in the British press, not American, says it all.

News outlets get it wrong, ask Dan Rather. Guilty until proven innocent, got it. Let the contractor step forth like Snowden.

And as for proof, where’s your proof that these contractors DO sign NDA’s then eh? It works both ways.

There is almost a zero percent chance there was not a contract or nda signed. Proof I have none, but common sense prevails about big business with sensitive data.

 

[ErikGrim]

What’s the news exactly? this information is out since months. Bloomberg reported about this in April in an article about Alexa. They already wrote how it works at Apple

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...g-to-you-on-alexa-a-global-team-reviews-audio

"Apple’s Siri also has human helpers, who work to gauge whether the digital assistant’s interpretation of requests lines up with what the person said. The recordings they review lack personally identifiable information and are stored for six months tied to a random identifier, according to an Apple security white paper. After that, the data is stripped of its random identification information but may be stored for longer periods to improve Siri’s voice recognition."

– April 10 2019.

/thread

 

[patent10021]

Ummm, you guys didn't know they use your voice data to improve the neural networks? lol

How else do you think they are going to improve it? AI is in its infancy. NNs need a corpus.

 

[Aeolius]

I'm sure Apple hears me calling my canary mastiff, Sirius, as I often call out "Hey, Sirius..."

 

[antonis]

So, just to make it clear, contractors mean 3rd party companies, right ?

 

[ipponrg]

So, just to make it clear, contractors mean 3rd party companies, right ?

Contractors in this context can mean 3rd party companies (i.e. headhunter bills Apple hourly) or individual short work contracts (i.e. headhunter finds you a job and gets a flat commission off it or you simply work for Apple direct but for a limited engagement).

 

[jscooper22]

I actually hope sometimes they're listening especially when I'm driving and it takes me seven tries to get Siri to understand what the hell I'm saying. Please tell me commands get flagged by developers when there's a barrage of "change it to...", "change it to...", "change it to..."

 

[Timemaster]

My opinion, is Apple lays out everything clearly in their TOS. You may have to dig to find out what the policies are but these policies are there.

The "whistleblowing" of this contractor, which isn't whistleblowing" at all, probably will have some serious ramifications for that department and it should.

My issue with Apple and honestly most TOS is they are way to long and complicated with so many loop holes you can drive a freakin truck threw. Apple I would say is by far one of the worse offenders with one of the longest most complicated one.

 

[kis]

I'm also skeptical of this claim from the contractor. Apple's privacy policy is pretty clear on this point, even if it doesn't mention the human oversight. I believe names and addresses might sometimes be heard if spoken aloud, but not that info is sent with contact information/addresses/location.

Apple has already admitted that the article was legit.
[doublepost=1564404901][/doublepost]

So this is an anecdote from a single contractor...

Without any actual evidence, this sort of nonsense should be ignored and a reputable journalist shouldn’t even report it; but these days they’ll do anything for attention.

Again, Tim has personally said that it’s legit.
[doublepost=1564404940][/doublepost]

Yup! Plus why are people using SIRI during sex and drug deals lol

“Hey Siri, set a 90 second timer”...
[doublepost=1564405003][/doublepost]

Well this is disappointing to read. Next headline I read will be that Apple has given iPhone backdoor access to the CIA. Disabling Siri.

All major US tech firms have given the CIA access to their servers.
[doublepost=1564405079][/doublepost]

I’m fine with them using voice recordings to make Siri better. As long as they aren’t using it to sell me ads, I’m good.

Well, has Siri gotten any better if the last few years? Exactly.

 

[DoctorTech]

[QUOTE="
[doublepost=1564405003][/doublepost]

All major US tech firms have given the CIA access to their servers.
[/QUOTE]
Source?

 

[imola.zhp]

Really? A friend of a friend of mine dated one two and he said Apple doesn’t do this ever. Hmmm, who to believe

When its a friend of a friend things tend to get a bit sorted.

 

[alexandr]

This is why I have Siri disabled.

because of drug deals or private medical info?

 

[I7guy]

....
Well, has Siri gotten any better if the last few years? Exactly.

Absolutely Siri has improved.

 

[neutralguy]

I didn’t know people are listening Siri conversations...

But if they do and Apple is basically doing what others do, then why Siri is behind other assistants?

Maybe because Apple has outsourced it to China? "Talked in California, Listened in China"

 

[blacktape242]

class action in 3....2.....

 

[macfacts]

Absolutely Siri has improved.

First impressions matter. Siri will always be known as weak.

 

[AngstyKylo]

No matter how much privacy is touted by companies, including Apple, it is difficult to trust any of them. Don't let any company have a spy in your house. Period.

It's a marketing ploy and must be working on the lay people. I mean look at all those billboards in Germany.