Amaya Toman Concerns about whether technology is eavesdropping on us are nothing new, and have grown even more with the arrival of smart speakers and voice assistants from all sorts of brands. However, these technologies need to hear from us as often as possible in order to function and improve. However, it can happen that voice assistants inadvertently hear more than they should.
This is according to the latest report, according to which Apple's contractual partners overheard confidential medical information, but also details about drug dealing or loud sex. Reporters of the British website The Guardian spoke to one of these contractual partners, according to whom Apple does not sufficiently inform users that their conversation can be - even unintentionally - intercepted.
In this regard, Apple said that a small portion of requests to Siri can actually be analyzed to improve Siri and dictation. However, user requests are never linked to a specific Apple ID. Siri responses are analyzed in a secure environment, and staff responsible for this segment are required to adhere to Apple's strict confidentiality requirements. Less than one percent of Siri commands are analyzed, and the recordings are very short.
Siri is activated on Apple devices only after saying the phrase "Hey Siri" or after pressing a specific button or keyboard shortcut. Only - and only - after activation, the commands are recognized and sent to the respective servers.
Sometimes, however, it can happen that the device mistakenly detects a completely different phrase like the command "Hey Siri" and starts transmitting the audio track to Apple's servers without the user's knowledge - and it is in these cases that the unwanted leakage of a private conversation, mentioned at the beginning of the article, occurs . In a similar way, unwanted eavesdropping can occur for Apple Watch owners who have activated the "Wrist Raise" function on their watch.
So, if you're seriously concerned about your conversation inadvertently going where it shouldn't, there's nothing easier than disabling the aforementioned features.
Source: Guardian
