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

[Vasilioskn]

Thank myself that I had Siri disabled since it came out. She’s useless.

 

[coolbeep]

Im scratching my head like, "how do you test an AI without human oversight?"...Like how else are you gonna check that it's working? build another AI to check the other AI? And then how do you check that???? lol

 

[cult hero]

I actually really like “Hey Siri” on the Watch and have it disabled everywhere else. It’s pretty hard to trigger accidentally when you have to say it AND wake the watch up.

 

[macfacts]

I don't understand what people think. You installed something that listens in your home. It is computerized and makes mistakes. You want the computer to get better, so there have to be humans fixing mistakes by correcting the algorithms. The only way they can do this is by listening. There will be accidental activations.

I'm seriously confused about why this is a big deal. Can people simply not put 2 and 2 together? There's nothing unusual or unexpected here.

The only thing concerning is that people are getting the location / contact information, but this sounds more like a rumor than actual information. Is the location an address, a city, a state? Is the contact information a name, a phone number, or some anonymous key that cannot be traced back? This would be a big deal if someone would going on record saying they had the exact address and the name of the person talking about a drug deal. Yet, the Guardian article doesn't mention any specifics. I wonder why.

This reads like crappy reporting with lots of innuendo and no actual facts.

It is a big deal because apple talks a lot about privacy but they are just hypocrites. And saying it doesn't matter because it is anonymized is ok is just technicalities. Apple is still using user data to make money.

 

[Naaaaak]

“What happens on iPhone stays on iPhone” or whatever BS they put on a billboard in Vegas speaks more of their platform lock-in stance than their privacy stance.

Their privacy stance feels more like marketing and perception management.

Remember: Apple was listed on the PRISM documents.

 

[I7guy]

It is a big deal because apple talks a lot about privacy but they are just hypocrites. And saying it doesn't matter because it is anonymized is ok is just technicalities. Apple is still using user data to make money.

Apple is in this case using user data to make the end user experience better. If one wants to be pedantic one could say making the user experience better makes Apple money. That of course is the way it really works in business.

 

[goobot]

So do they only get audio from Siri when it is activated or do they also get audio from when hey Siri is enabled but Siri itself isn’t?

 

[kostthem]

Nothing new here. I thought that Siri was spying on us when we are not trigger her.

 

[Gasu E.]

If Siri is not always listening how does she react to “hey Siri” to activate her?

Nice one. I thought you were serious, until I noticed you referred to Siri as "she" and "her". Subtle.
[doublepost=1564203667][/doublepost]

No. You're wrong here. From how I am reading this, it's when the 'Hey Siri' function is switched on in the settings and then it's listening to the conversations. You DON'T accidentally activate Siri on your iPhone when you are sat with your doctor etc. To me, it's that damn setting 'HEY SIRI' switched 'ON'.

You're misreading his comment. He's not saying that the Siri program is not listening. He's saying that humans only listen to a tiny percentage of Siri inputs. And to be clear, if you read what the contractor actually claims, he never says he was involved in the Siri response; just in analyzing interactions well after the fact.

 

[!!!]

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

Exactly. I know Siri isn't as good, and I (thought) it was because they don't use user data for testing. Clearly, this is not the case.

Honestly, Apple has lost a lot of my trust.

 

[LizKat]

This literally showed up the day after I decided to activate Hey Siri. Pure irony

That's from turning on the Secure Enclave to Brain option which then makes suggestions as to what you should do next. The irony though, yeah.... but not a matter of coincidence.

To me this whole things sounds like no big deal. It's pretty clear the data is anonymized, the only issue is if the data you're speaking somehow is special enough to identify you uniquely or if you are providing data on some location-identifiable illegal transaction.

I wouldn't ordinarily pipe up here with "nothing to hide, so nothing to see here" but I'm almost tempted in this case. The contractor might be describing a bug, or... it's just a crock and possibly with some underlying agenda, who knows. Apple will like to know though.

Personally I never tell Siri much more complicated stuff then to play certain music or to open some online newspaper app on an iPad so it will refresh while I'm doing something else on my laptop. She's usually ok with that.

Once in awhile I must mumble and then sometimes her responses are pretty comical with respect to what she says she can't find. I'm ok with the training and tweaking process. I guess I'd be annoyed if I had higher expectations of Siri for more complex tasks and felt she was still not understanding even my basic requests better. But I don't really have any benchmarks for complicated requests.

 

[AtomicDusk]

I’m not quite bought into the outrage bandwagon for this. I can’t help but wonder if whistleblower was putting names together incorrectly and making assumptions by filling in the missing data or if he really had enough. But if someone said “get me directions to....” and siri’s Response said “the closest one I found is x.y miles away” well you can narrow your radius down.
Rationally I can’t be outraged that you can figure it out if you have those data. I would wonder how to practically prevent it. I’m sure if I were not typing this while half asleep I could have better reasoning. Oh well.

 

[Simoleon547]

It must be horrible to be named Siri or Alexa these days. Your life will never be as private again, and everyone has to disable their assistants or pull the plugs when you come around.

 

[Jeaz]

When would Siri record conversations between two users? It’s not how Siri works. For this to be true it would have to be recording call data, which I’m sceptical it does.

 

[alexhardaker]

Exactly. I know Siri isn't as good, and I (thought) it was because they don't use user data for testing. Clearly, this is not the case.

Honestly, Apple has lost a lot of my trust.

It’s in their Siri and dictation statements on their website. Seriously, go read it. Someone posted it on here, actually.

 

[quaresma]

So what? Apple employs the best people and even if they hear that it is a PRIVILEGE to have the personal attention of apple

LOL what? You say the same thing about Google? This is a whole new level of fanboy

 

[Blaze4G]

How stupid. Apple is very up front about their practice, so it's not "whistleblowing" since there's no secret here. If anything the worst part of this article is the idiotic complain that someone who SAYS THEIR INFO IN THE RECORDING is having this info disclosed. If I record my address on a cassette tape and give it to someone with a walkman, sony didn't disclose anything. I did.

Someone didnt read the article.
[doublepost=1564215176][/doublepost]

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.

No where in those articles it says Amazon or Google is always recording. Amazon says themselves the echo starts recording after activation, just like siri.

But hey, let's try and spin it to defend Apple.

 

[mwd25]

Home Pod gets triggered super easily. She butts into a lot of conversations in our house. I’ve never seen my watch activate accidentally but my iPhone sometimes does.

Alexa is also nosy and sometimes blurts out things that make me think a person is directly on the other end. One day I complained about not feeling well and Alexa self activated and wished me to get better soon. I was not able to trigger that reaction again. Even the first time I didn’t say anything remotely that sounded like “Alexa” nor did I notice the light come on indicating it had been triggered.

With Google it’s easy to go in and see all of your recordings and delete them. At least delete them from your own eyes. Who really knows if they’re deleted on Google’s end of things. I quite doubt it.

Amazon allows you to see all recordings also,Its in Alexa app, you could go in and see what word it heaed to activate. I have changed my wake word to "computer". It barely ever goes off accidentally now, if ever...........unless I put on Star Trek tng. I have to just mute Alexa while watching

 

[sinoka56]

Im scratching my head like, "how do you test an AI without human oversight?"...Like how else are you gonna check that it's working? build another AI to check the other AI? And then how do you check that???? lol

How about hiring a lot of people and pay them to record their voices.

 

[apolloa]

Our family finds them useful, especially Alexa. As we find out we’ve run out of something we tell her to add it to our shopping list. We keep the Echo in the kitchen. We used to have one in the family room but the TV kept activating it. Nothing quite like hearing Alexa trying to have a conversation with Chef Ramsey!

We chuck these speaker/assistants in a common area of the house.

It’s the assistants on the phones and tablets that have me concerned. Can’t forget Bixby and Cortana, either. Their TOS’s are way to broad for my liking.

I think Cortana is on its way out anyway, Microsoft will be removing it from the Xbox in the next update, so that’s millions of devices losing it...

I always said Apple was utterly hypocritical with its heavy advertising of privacy. Amazon and Google are quite open that for an AI to learn and get better it needs to be taught that, but it seems Apple does the same yet doesn’t tell anyone.. whilst Siri remains really crap.

 

[skitidetdu]

Isn't this the same thing that was said about Alexa some time ago?

 

[Luis Ortega]

Siri is useless. How can you delete it from your device or turn it off completely?

 

[apolloa]

It is a big deal because apple talks a lot about privacy but they are just hypocrites. And saying it doesn't matter because it is anonymized is ok is just technicalities. Apple is still using user data to make money.

I would lean more towards believing the report which means they as described do get access to your details, location etc and it’s not anonymised as described.. as opposed to a giant consumer electronics manufacture that has the power to ask the president to stop import blocks assigned by the courts onto them..
With Apple about to start its privacy ad campaign in Europe, plus all the massive media attention and big investigation going on around giant tech companies and privacy.. this is going to be interesting as Apple will be seen partly as worst then the others, ensue they flat out advertise they don’t do any of this which is false and misleading advertising.

 

[daveak]

I had a strange experience with Siri 4 years ago. The phone was plugged in the car, and I was discussing forest trails with my son. Suddenly, Siri said “I can’t find any forest trails around here.” That was weird and freaky.

Freaky? You most likely said son which caused Siri to incorrectly activate and pickup the rest. The S sound often causes activation. This is why they listen to some recordings, to try and identify things like this and stop them happening.

 

[apolloa]

Apple has responded to the article by simply stating ‘you can turn of location tracking in Siri or turn Siri off all together’, which pretty much confirms everything reported in the article...

Remember that next time you lot on here attempt to belittle Google or Amazon for apparently tracking you or recording everything you say, which they don’t they only record after the keyword just like Siri... only with Google and Amazon you can turn off the ability for your recordings to be used. Not on Apple you can’t.

What’s on your iPhone stays on your iPhone. So long as you turn off Siri...


http://9to5mac.com/2019/07/26/siri-privacy-concerns-report/

Apple really are two face hypocrites, shocker.