Apple and Google temporarily stop listening to Siri and OK Google queries

[Guest]

Apple and Google temporarily stop listening to Siri and OK Google queries

 

Yes ! Yes ! They stopped! For now... At least that's what they officially say...

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Apple workers have stopped listening to Siri queries worldwide, the company said this week. Apple plans to bring back human reviews of Siri voice recordings at some unspecified date, but the company said it will only review them when customers specifically opt in to the practice.

Separately, Google today confirmed that it recently "paused" human reviews of Google Assistant queries worldwide.

Apple's decision to stop having humans listen to Siri queries follows a report last week that contractors who review the recordings for accuracy heard private discussions and even sexual encounters.

Apple calls the human reviews of Siri recordings "grading."

"We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy," Apple told Ars and other news organizations. "While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally. Additionally, as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading."

Apple had no further comment, a spokesperson said.

Google “paused reviews globally”

A German investigation into Google began after a Google contractor leaked 1,000 voice recordings to VRT NWS, a news organization run by a public broadcaster in the Flemish region of Belgium. VRT NWS reviewed the recordings and was able to identify some of the people who were recorded. VRT NWS also said that 153 of the 1,000 recordings it listened to "were conversations that should never have been recorded and during which the command 'OK Google' was clearly not given."

"Shortly after we learned about the leaking of confidential Dutch audio data, we paused language reviews of the Assistant to investigate. This paused reviews globally," Google told Ars today.

Google previously told Ars that "You must opt in to have your audio recordings stored to your account, and Voice and Audio Activity is not required to use the Google Assistant."

"You can turn off storing audio data to your Google account completely, or choose to auto-delete data after every three months or 18 months," the company noted today. The ability to turn off storage of voice activity can be found in Google activity controls.

Google didn't say when it will resume human reviews of Google Assistant recordings. However, Google was ordered by German authorities to stop human evaluations of Google Assistant queries for at least three months.

Google confirmed to those authorities "that transcriptions of voice recordings will no longer be carried out at present and for at least three months from 1 August 2019," according to the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (HmbBfDI). This covers all recordings in the European Union, the agency said.

The three-month ban "is intended to provisionally protect the rights of privacy of data subjects for the time being," while data protection authorities investigate and consider a more permanent solution, the HmbBfDI said.

 

[Haaselh0ff]

Hey guys I've stopped listening to your conversations so feel free to go back to talking about all of your private information again!

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Oh, so now Google is pausing it globally too?  I had only read that it was only going to be paused in the EU.  They're either telling a different story to different instances or they decided to do it worldwide after Apple's announcement that they would stop all "grading".

 

 

I had already updated the original topics regarding the recordings, but perhaps it does indeed warrant a topic of its own. 

 

 

 
 

[maartendc]

38 minutes ago, CircleTech said:

the "temporarily" part is important here. They will go back to listening to our voices a few months after the media has forgotten this even happened.

Yes, how very good of them. This is not a policy change at all, rather just something they are doing until this all blows over.

What a big joke.

[Guest]

How else are you meant to improve an AI based on voice recognition. Of course you will need data, I don’t think anyone thought that Apple or Google didn’t listen to the recordings. 

[DrMacintosh]

2 hours ago, CircleTech said:

the "temporarily" part is important here. They will go back to listening to our voices a few months after the media has forgotten this even happened.

Incorrect, as Apple specifically said that they would only reinstate the program to customers who opt-in. 

 

Nice fear mongering though. 

[DrMacintosh]

2 hours ago, maartendc said:

Yes, how very good of them. This is not a policy change at all, rather just something they are doing until this all blows over.

Maybe for Google. Apple is making the service opt-in only. 

[Sauron]

GUYS WE ARE TOTALLY NOT LISTENING YOU CAN TRUST THAT YOUR PRIVATE ANS SPICY CONVERSATIONS WILL NOT BE HEARD

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

3 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Apple is making the service opt-in only.

AFAIK there has been no confirmation of that, the official wording is that "users will have the ability to choose to participate".  So it may be opt-out with a toggle switch buried somewhere deep in a submenu (like Google is most likely going to do).

Yes, I have more faith in Apple than in Google when it comes to these things, but this is still very valuable data for them so I wouldn't be surprised if they do the bare minimum in an attempt to get as many people as possible to "participate".

 

Still no info on how Amazon plans to handle the situation.  They're going to get slapped hard if they don't do anything.  I am pretty sure that just about every EU-based privacy authority is looking into all voice assistants right now. 

[Arika]

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temporarily

oh, well that's nice of them.

 

 

 

Apple: we care about you're privacy, we're trying.

 

Google: Maaaan, we got fuckin' caught