iPhone 17 Is your iPhone listening to you?

[Ruggy]

It can hear you when you say 'Hey Siri' so it must be listening all the time for that at least.
So yes, it's listening to you.
They say it isn't listening to anything else- but they would wouldn't they, and we all had incidents where we've said something and it starts chuckling or answering- thinking we are talking to Siri. It switches on sometimes for sure
These companies make their money out of advertising. I don't think they are really interested if you want a cup of coffee or if you are picking the kids up today, it's it perfectly possible they are listening for key words to send you advertising.
I don't really care what legislation says, I doubt it has any relevance to servers in the middle of the ocean.

 

[MacCheetah3]

It can hear you when you say 'Hey Siri' so it must be listening all the time for that at least.
So yes, it's listening to you.

To clarify, I meant the belief, conspiracy that iPhone or similar are recording everything. There’s no need. All of these companies share, sell every other bit of usage data.

For example, if I search for something on Amazon — while not logged in — the last few products I viewed will be marketed to me on almost every other website nearly immediately thereafter. It doesn’t matter if I switch browsers, etc. It’s frustrating and, of course, concerning.

 

[AdamInKent]

It can hear you when you say 'Hey Siri' so it must be listening all the time for that at least.
So yes, it's listening to you.

It’s listening for “Hey Siri”, using dedicated hardware tailored to do that one thing. All it “hears” is “blah blah blah HEY SIRI blah blah blah”, triggering the voice recognition function when it thinks it hears the trigger phrase. Same for Alexa et al.

Anything more would require too much processing power to be feasible, either on device or in the cloud. And, as discussed extensively earlier in this thread, there are much simpler ways to to serve you precisely targeted advertising, which don’t involve your devices listening into you 24-7.

 

[bjork90210]

It’s listening for “Hey Siri”, using dedicated hardware tailored to do that one thing. All it “hears” is “blah blah blah HEY SIRI blah blah blah”, triggering the voice recognition function when it thinks it hears the trigger phrase. Same for Alexa et al.

Anything more would require too much processing power to be feasible, either on device or in the cloud. And, as discussed extensively earlier in this thread, there are much simpler ways to to serve you precisely targeted advertising, which don’t involve your devices listening into you 24-7.

😂 “too much processsing power”? Do you know how powerful these chips are?

 

[AdamInKent]

😂 “too much processsing power”? Do you know how powerful these chips are?

Yes, I do; I’m a professional electronics engineer. How about you?

And it’s not just about the power of chips. Ask yourself how hot your phone gets when the processor is working hard? How long the battery lasts?

A really big clue that your phone isn’t always listening to you is that you have to say the trigger word at the start of the sentence; it won’t work if you say it at the end.

 

[Zazoh]

It’s worse than listening. But not so much the phone. If three of us are in a room and we all have a meta app, meta knows that. The amount of data collected by various entities is staggering. But, to what end? The NSA has listened to phone calls most of my life. Travel records, purchasing patterns, email, websites. It’s all out there. Even the grocery store gives you coupons for competitive products you’ve just bought. The charge card and the store know you have loose stools or problems sleeping. It’s the nature of the tech.

 

[cynics]

You and your friend are closely associated with each other so you'll receive ads for each others interest on occasion.

So it's not a coincidence but not because the iPhone is actively and always listening to you.

Your friend researched and bought a Roland drum set. Using a variety of data you are correlated with him so the ad prediction algorithm felt there was a chance you might also be interested in buying the same product. The data used to associate you and your friend comes from social media platforms, location data and proximity to each other, using the same wifi networks (IP correlation), app permissions (contacts, messages, location services, etc).

With close friends these ads often go unnoticed because you have similar interest. The Roland ad stood out because you aren't a musician, however that's 1 ad out of thousands. Think about it carefully though, do you ever see ads that you think could make a decent gift for friend or family member? That isn't a coincidence, that is targeted as a potential gift based on that specific persons interest.

In the iPhone goto privacy settings to 'Ad Targeting Information' for more info, and goto 'App Privacy Report' for a better understanding.