Ondrej Holzman Few would dispute that as far as privacy protection and data of its users, Apple is the furthest among the technological leaders and is generally very trustworthy in this regard. However, emerging artificial intelligence, voice assistants and other services cannot do without effective data collection, and Apple is facing increasing pressure from competitors.
The difference between Apple and the competition, represented here in particular by Google, Amazon or Facebook, is simple. Apple tries to collect significantly less data, and if it does, it does so completely anonymously so that no information can be linked to a specific user. Others, on the other hand, have at least partially based their business on data collection.
Google collects a large amount of different data about its users, which it then resells, for example for better targeting of advertising, etc. However, this is a well-known reality that everyone is familiar with. More importantly now, services come into play where data collection is key not for profit, but above all for continuous improvement of the given product.
The most various voice and virtual assistants are currently trending such as Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa or Google's Assistant, and key to constantly improving their functions and providing the best possible response to the user's commands and queries, they must collect and analyze data, ideally as large a sample as possible. And this is where the aforementioned protection of user data comes into play.
Very good analysis on this topic written by Ben Bajarin pros Tech.pinions, which evaluates Apple's services with regard to the emphasis on privacy and compares them with the competition, which, on the other hand, does not deal with this aspect as much.
Apple uses information about us to create better products and services. But we have no idea how much information is collected and analyzed. The problem is that Apple's services improve (or at least it often feels that way) much more slowly than those of other companies that collect and analyze more data about user behavior, such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. There's no doubt that Siri still has the edge in multi-language support and integration across all Apple devices, where the competition still has its limits. Still, it has to be acknowledged that Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa are in many ways equally advanced and comparable to Siri (neither of them are yet perfect or bug-free). Both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa have been on the market for less than a year, while Siri has been around for five years. Despite the technical advances in machine learning and natural language processing that Google and Amazon have benefited from in those four years, I have no doubt that their massive data sets of user behavior have been useful in feeding their backend engine to achieve machine intelligence almost the same level as Siri.
From the point of view of the Czech user, the topic of voice assistants, which are on the rise in the United States, is very difficult to evaluate. Neither Siri, nor Alexa, nor Assistant understand Czech, and their use is very limited in our country. However, the problem that Bajarin comes across does not only apply to these virtual assistants, but also to a whole range of other services.
The proactive part of iOS (and Siri) is constantly learning our behavior so that it can then present us with the best possible recommendations in given moments, but the results are not always the best. Bajarin himself admits that although he has been on iOS since 2007, when he used Android for a few months, Google's operating system learned his habits much faster and in the end worked better than the proactive iOS and Siri.
Of course, experiences can vary here, but the fact that Apple simply collects much less data than the competition and subsequently works with it a little differently is a fact that puts Apple at a disadvantage, and the question is how the Californian company will approach this in the future.
I might even prefer if Apple simply said "trust us with your data, we'll keep it safe and deliver you better products and services" instead of taking the stance of collecting only the minimum amount of data necessary and also universally anonymizing that data. .
Bajarin alludes to a very current discussion where some users try to avoid companies like Google and their services as much as possible (instead of Google they use DuckDuckGo search engine etc.) so that their data remains as much as possible and securely hidden. Other users, on the other hand, give up part of their privacy, even in favor of improving the experience of the services they use.
In this case, I completely agree with Bajarin that surely many users would have no problem voluntarily handing over more data to Apple if they got better service in return. Of course, for more efficient data collection, Apple introduced the concept in iOS 10 differential privacy and the question is what effect it will have on further development.
The whole issue does not only concern virtual assistants, who are talked about the most. For example, in the case of Maps, I exclusively use Google services, because not only do they work much better within the Czech Republic than Apple maps, but they also constantly learn and usually present me with what I really need or am interested in.
I'm willing to accept the tradeoff that Google knows a little more about me if I get a better service in return. It doesn't make sense to me nowadays to hide in a shell and try to avoid such data collection, when upcoming services are based on the analysis of your behavior. If you're not willing to share your data, you can't expect the best experience, even though Apple tries to provide a comprehensive experience even for those who refuse to share anything with it. However, the functioning of such services must necessarily be ineffective.
It will be very interesting to see how all the services of the main mentioned players will develop in the coming years, but if Apple should even partially reconsider or adjust its position on privacy and data collection in order to be competitive, it will ultimately benefit itself, the entire market and the user. Even if in the end he offered it only as an optional option and continued to push hard for maximum user protection.
No way! Author, you hit the nail on the head. One of the main advantages of Apple is precisely the consistent protection of user data. Seriously, this article didn't work at all. If you're going to give up your privacy, ok. It's your business... But don't speak for others and try to tell them how great it is.
Having privacy means being able to choose which data to release and which not to. Google, MS completely failed the users, yet their artificial assistants and other services are worse than Siri, etc. But even if these services of theirs were not worse, this is still not a reason for the arguments presented in the article. Privacy is a very valuable commodity, I'm not going to just hand it over to a corporation, be it stupid google, MS or even Facebook.
exactly
I hope that will not succumb
I agree, although I wouldn't be as aggressive. :-) The problem with today's media, including tech news sites, is that they often actively shape public opinion themselves, rather than based on something that already existed at the time the article was written. Often, the media passively, subliminally, suggest to us alleged problems or conflicts that do not yet occur at all or are not even close to such a stage as the given article tries to present, and that only on the basis that today it is 'fashionable' mainly to have an opinion, at all costs, for everything, even if I don't know anything about the given topic, even if it's not important at all, even if no one else is solving it, because if I didn't specifically express my opinion right now, the world would fall apart . :-) All selfie generations and similar phenomena arise from this, but I'm digressing from that and doing exactly what I'm talking about. :-)
Perhaps Bajarin was pushed to write such an article by someone from Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft or a similar company, who is bothered by the fact that in the technological world there is still a certain educated part of the general customer public that protests against the phenomenon of big data. Differential privacy is a great way and let's give it time to manifest itself, because even if, beautifully, Apple really needs to collect quantitatively larger samples of data in order to improve its AI services, it does not need to tie them to a specific user. It seems to me that Apple has its absolutely unshakable, calm position, it does not care about anything in this area at all, but from all sides someone is still trying to convince us that the train is running out, Siri is incapable of competing, and if Apple does not catch up quickly , will lose the opportunity. But what on earth? What does it need a smarter Siri or some sort of Amazon Echo device for? After all, for him, Siri is more or less a peripheral sphere, and all voice assistants are more of the same shiny toy with the aim of creating an impression rather than being of practical use. And besides, she is gradually improving. It's just that they simply don't devote as much time, effort and perhaps even human resources to it as other players on the market.
If Apple stopped respecting user privacy, it would lose one of the three main, core values that make it meaningful to me compared to the competition. The other two are accessibility (specifically VoiceOver) and an ecosystem optimized for proprietary software and hardware collaboration. For me, all the alleged limitation that follows is a guarantee of quality, stability and reliability. Let everyone who doesn't like Apple's philosophy feel free to use Android and Windows 10, after all, I don't blame or blame anyone, but let no one try to give us the feeling that Apple is worse in something or a hundred years behind the monkeys just because it's the only does not spend heavy money on user privacy!
I agree with everything you wrote and I couldn't have written it better, thank you
It is possible that everyone understands the article a little differently. According to me, he claims that if I turn off save my data at Apple, I will have better searches or other services. But this does not mean that your data will be given to someone else, that they will be abused for commercial purposes or that they will be made publicly available for download, etc... They will simply be somewhere at Apple and they will help you when evaluated.
So, as a result, even Apple and the CIA do not have to get to them (other than by machine) :-).
In my opinion, what you put on the Internet is public (more or less). What do you do to really have it private on the Internet, when it's so important to you?
Do you have your own OS? Do you code your own browser? Don't you use other programs on your OS? Don't you have an internet registration yet? Are you not using any plugins in your browser? Do you use antivirus? Do you analyze the site and sent packets? Don't use public Wifi? Etc…
Everything you put on the Internet is no longer private, that's the basic rule. It applies to absolutely everything, sooner or later :-).
Too bad you're anonymous, I'd like to chat about that topic :-).
Apple's collection of less data is more an incompetence than an intention – Apple simply doesn't have a search engine. And without the "big" you really can't do much, because a complex pattern of behavior requires clouds of data. I don't deny that privacy is to hell with this...
If Siri in our native language meant giving up our privacy… I will speak English with Siri until I die…
Siri in Czech and privacy are only marginally related.
Siri is a long way from artificial intelligence, in English. It basically parses the speech and tries to find a match with some of the patterns prescribed by the programmers.
I don't know what the article is about, because that's how it is today. However, the difference is that by default Apple has a checkmark not to send, it does not force anyone anywhere and it is therefore up to each person whether to send, so the competition does the exact opposite and many times we do not even know that we are sending something. I prefer Apple's approach and occasionally send them something myself.
Only a naive fool can think that Apple is different from other companies, collecting data is a big business and everyone who uses apple and their iCloud and Applications knowingly or unknowingly sends or provides this information to them, whether you have a check box to send or not as someone mentioned below , they know everything about you, where you move, your state of health, what you look like, they have your voice recorded and so I could go on endlessly, where you spend, what sites you visit, etc.
Well, big brother would applaud the article! I can say for myself that privacy and security at Apple remains one of the main driving forces for me. I know from the experience of those around me that Apple does not release data even on official requests, and this seems to me to be a big difference nowadays compared to the competition, which sells information like on a conveyor belt.
And what "better services" do you envision? That if I write in an SMS that I'm thinking about a new car, so that the phone prompts me with advertisements from car dealers and bazaars? So that if I look at the page with strollers once, I'll be emailed ads for strollers from a company that paid for advertising with Google?
No. I'm not interested in anything like that.
Siri works well enough. He dials me, launches the app. Finds friends on the map. Calculates a mathematical example. It sets an alarm clock, a reminder. Etc. See advertisement.
I don't need anyone to invade my privacy at all!
When I want to find something, I look for it myself. Not that artificial intelligence decides to satisfy me even in things I don't want it to, but the one who pays for advertising to Google, for example, wants it.
Let alone at the cost of privacy! At all!