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No matter how good a company's intentions may be, if you retain sensitive and private information on your customers then you run the risk that information will be used and abused in ways that put both your customers and your business at risk.
 
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People....calm down. There IS a huge difference between Apple and the rest of these devices. Details and facts matter here.

Google/Amazon devices...ALWAYS RECORDING. Humans listening. Recordings subpoenaed by authorities.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/14/amazon-echo-recordings-judge-murder-case/
https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-bentonville-arkansas-murder-case/index.html

Apple devices...Recording AFTER YOU ACTIVATE SIRI. Humans listening to a small portion to improve recognition. Stripped of personal data.

Now the contractor is stating that they have heard drug deals, doctors convos, sexual activity...yes they have...from people activating Siri inadvertently!!!

The article is sensationalizing this and making it seem like Apple is always listening through Siri. They are not. Move along. Nothing to see here.
 
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So I used to tell everyone that the reason Siri is so much worse than the others, is because they don't have real people listening in to make corrections. And that I take privacy over the better performance of other assistants. But that seems to not be the case. So what the **** Apple, I brag about Apple privacy to all my Android friends (friends with Android phones, not robot friends) and this is how you repay me. SMH

So you believe everything you read online?

I bet you that Apple is right. They are admitting that 1% of anonymized recordings are analyzed, which seems essential to tune the service. I have no problem with that. Await the Open Letter from Apple on this issue...
 
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I'm curious why these tech giants, who tout the wizardry of their AI wares, require so much human auditing and intervention. I'm beginning to think much of the AI magic is just canned pretending.
 
Previous reports about Google and Amazon seem to be a bit different because identifying info was included with voice recordings

No it wasn't. Read the original articles again.

"Notably, Google assures its customers that the audio recordings sent to humans for transcription are "not associated with user accounts as part of the review process." However, VRT NWS was able to identify specific individuals based on the content of the recordings."

Just like here, identifying info wasn't included with the recordings, however the *content* of the recordings is more than enough to identify some people.
 
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This is why I have Siri disabled.

Agreed, I do that as well. I also turn off just about every cloud sync option iOS allows.

I'm also skeptical of this claim from the contractor. Apple's privacy policy is pretty clear on this point,

It seems to me that it's easier to write a privacy-friendly policy than it is to enforce it across 80K+ employees. I would give this contractor a good listen and I would expect a proper explanation from Apple.

Apple touts privacy and no doubt they are one of the better companies with respect to that; however, I think people underestimate just how much data is collected by Apple.
 
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I am willing to bet the high number of false triggers w/ the apple watch have nothing to do with "Hey Siri", but rather the digital crown constantly getting accidentally depressed due to its placement on the device. This has been a frustrating design flaw of the watch since its launch; but hey form over function, right?
How exactly is the Digital Crown form over function?
 
It's going to be interesting to further watch the mental gymnastics of the Apple cult go crazy trying to reconcile this with Google and Amazon. Folks in this forum are definitely more down to earth then some of the others I've been to, I could actually read the replies in here and laugh! I'd say the hard core folks in those forums could be "the usual", at least by my definition.
So one report from one anonymous contractor is enough data points to say Apple is just like Google and Amazon in this area?
 
Sensational article... The contract is reporting on **** Apple has no control over. If the siri collection picks up PII, that's not something that can be immediately filtered unless there's going to be an on-device filter that occurs.

Secondly, the contractor reaffirms that Apple doesn't associate device ID, location, or other PII to the Siri collection. Weak whistleblower
 
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LOL saw this one coming for a miles away when it broke on Google. Big time when you consider the fact that both Amazon and Google are very far ahead of Apple in the terms of voice assistant.

I am not surprised and if done right it like on Google you would of had to opt in to do it.
I do not believe you could opt in on Amazon. You were required to if you want to use Amazon. At least on Google and Apple I believe you can say no do not do it.
 
With chip now, skimming is much less useful especially since places with goods you can resell, like the Apple Store and Best Buy, are chip. What a server in a restaurant can do is simply write down the name and numbers, then use it to make fraudulent purchases online. That problem, called cross-channel fraud, is solved by this card.
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Even on the push button this is happening. This is from the recording of the request. In homepod it would be from the wake word on. Or from your phone when you pressed on it. AKA no different.
 
People....calm down. There IS a huge difference between Apple and the rest of these devices. Details and facts matter here.

Google/Amazon devices...ALWAYS RECORDING. Humans listening. Recordings subpoenaed by authorities.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/14/amazon-echo-recordings-judge-murder-case/
https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-bentonville-arkansas-murder-case/index.html

Apple devices...Recording AFTER YOU ACTIVATE SIRI. Humans listening to a small portion to improve recognition. Stripped of personal data.

Now the contractor is stating that they have heard drug deals, doctors convos, sexual activity...yes they have...from people activating Siri inadvertently!!!

The article is sensationalizing this and making it seem like Apple is always listening through Siri. They are not. Move along. Nothing to see here.

If Siri is not always listening how does she react to “hey Siri” to activate her?
 
People....calm down. There IS a huge difference between Apple and the rest of these devices. Details and facts matter here.

Google/Amazon devices...ALWAYS RECORDING. Humans listening. Recordings subpoenaed by authorities.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/14/amazon-echo-recordings-judge-murder-case/
https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-bentonville-arkansas-murder-case/index.html

Apple devices...Recording AFTER YOU ACTIVATE SIRI. Humans listening to a small portion to improve recognition. Stripped of personal data.

Now the contractor is stating that they have heard drug deals, doctors convos, sexual activity...yes they have...from people activating Siri inadvertently!!!

The article is sensationalizing this and making it seem like Apple is always listening through Siri. They are not. Move along. Nothing to see here.
None of the devices are "always recording"... take off the tinfoil hat. The recordings subpoenaed were just sound bites slightly before and after the trigger word was said.

It would be pretty damn obvious if echo's/google homes were constantly streaming audio data somewhere... They aren't.
 
Key word annoymized. That’s the important part. Google has been doing this forever with less personal protections.
 
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Is this happening even for people who have opted out of sharing data with Apple?

If yes then this is shameful of Apple, surprising and deeply disappointing.

I don’t care if the Siri data is anonymized or not. If you say you don’t want to share any data for analytics/research/product improvement purposes then this type of collection is misleading, problematic and should be illegal.
 
To be honest, nobody has time to go through all these recordings, even the NSA. Once they get stuffed into a speech-to-text recognition engine then we should start to get worried.

In any case Apple most likely isn't going to do anything untoward with the data, because they're Apple. People don't believe corporations are different from each other, but the are.

That said, it's good that people are aware that this is happening. To anyone in the field it's obvious, but to the general public it's probably a surprise.
 
People....calm down. There IS a huge difference between Apple and the rest of these devices. Details and facts matter here.

Google/Amazon devices...ALWAYS RECORDING. Humans listening. Recordings subpoenaed by authorities.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/14/amazon-echo-recordings-judge-murder-case/
https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-bentonville-arkansas-murder-case/index.html

Apple devices...Recording AFTER YOU ACTIVATE SIRI. Humans listening to a small portion to improve recognition. Stripped of personal data.

Now the contractor is stating that they have heard drug deals, doctors convos, sexual activity...yes they have...from people activating Siri inadvertently!!!

The article is sensationalizing this and making it seem like Apple is always listening through Siri. They are not. Move along. Nothing to see here.

Who's activating Siri while having sex????????
 
No it wasn't. Read the original articles again.

"Notably, Google assures its customers that the audio recordings sent to humans for transcription are "not associated with user accounts as part of the review process." However, VRT NWS was able to identify specific individuals based on the content of the recordings."

Just like here, identifying info wasn't included with the recordings, however the *content* of the recordings is more than enough to identify some people.

From Bloomberg:

"In Alexa's privacy settings, Amazon gives users the option of disabling the use of their voice recordings for the development of new features. The company says people who opt out of that program might still have their recordings analyzed by hand over the regular course of the review process. A screenshot reviewed by Bloomberg shows that the recordings sent to the Alexa reviewers don’t provide a user’s full name and address but are associated with an account number, as well as the user’s first name and the device’s serial number."

Edit: Also from Bloomberg:

"An Amazon.com Inc. team auditing Alexa users’ commands has access to location data and can, in some cases, easily find a customer’s home address, according to five employees familiar with the program."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...reviewers-can-access-customers-home-addresses

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