Thanks to Siri Recaps, your Apple Watch is always listening

ggeox about 2 hours ago 24 commentsRead Article on techradar.com

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Discussion (24 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

gumby•36 minutes ago

I like the idea (we’ll see about the execs). It seems to record what I would remember anyway (“yesterday you and Joe and Anupam talked about going fishing a chose a date”) unless I was distracted.

It’s like the cameras in the glasses. If all they said is what _I_ know (“That’s Julie who worked in the same group as you at company Z three years ago. You also ran into her at the grocery store shortly after you quit Z and it was awkward” but not tell me anything about Julie I wouldn’t know, like spouse or where she now works or anything like that”) it would be an excellent prosthesis. Public figures have humans who do this for them.

Unfortunately the glasses makers don’t understand the difference and make it too general and privacy destroying. This Apple thing might be OK in my opinion..but the reality remains to be seen.

malfist•14 minutes ago

I have prosopagnosia. Glasses that could tell me the name of the person talking to me would be amazing. But not if I have to give big tech data about everyone around me

abirch•32 minutes ago

I would love to have AI that can help support my fragmented memory. As my mom said, I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached. However, this requires a lot of TRUST with the company this access. Apple is the only big tech I could trust but I'm still unsure.

Krasnol•9 minutes ago

Would you ask Joe and Anupam for their consent to be recorded?

I doubt it and this is the actual problem here with those glasses and now the watch.

haute_cuisine•20 minutes ago

With "use it or loose it" brain feature, I don't really want my natural recap skill to atrophy to make me dependent on this sort of tech. Not considering that they can secretly ship other monitoring features to constantly scan for certain discussions.

soapdog•17 minutes ago

Hence why I wear an old pebble to this day. Smart where it matters but not a data siphoning device.

napolux•about 1 hour ago

Never bought a smartwatch, even when I was in love with the Pebble. I hate having to charge it every day. I don't need notifications on my wrist.

I have a Casio that has a 10 years battery and dual timezone I need when I travel and a TAG Heuer when I need a "better looking" watch.

I don't need to track steps or trainings. Even when I did it was with stupid gadgets like early fitbit bands without displays.

When I will need something that will alert people when I fall (in many years from now, hopefully) I will use a specialized device.

* You don't need a smartwatch. *

basch•less than a minute ago

tap to pay is handy, i would wear something just for that if it lasted all week on a charge.

having a fitness / sleep tracker that i cant wear while i sleep cuz it needs to charge defeats the purpose. doesnt quite fill during a shower.

apple also made it prohibitively cumbersome / confusing to own two devices that boot up to identical instances. why cant i have two pieces of hardware, and whichever one i pick up resumes the session. i dont want them to have two configurations, i want them to mirror each other, if a setting changes on one, it changes on the other.

dmd•5 minutes ago

You said a bunch of statements about yourself, and then made a statement about me.

You should have concluded "I don't need a smartwatch."

Not everyone has the same needs.

outime•33 minutes ago

>I hate having to charge it every day

My smartwatch lasts 10-14 days.

>I don't need notifications on my wrist

I do, as I hate missing the few calls I get, and I love being woken up by a vibration on my wrist instead of a blaring alarm.

I won't address the rest as it's quite subjective, but honestly saying you don’t need a smartwatch is bordering on ragebait.

sdcfgy•about 1 hour ago

That’s going to be a hell of a security risk for us. I think it’ll be a no watches policy in the office going forward.

jsw97•22 minutes ago

This is, I believe, a felony in Massachusetts.

https://www.romanolaw.com/can-i-record-a-conversation-in-mas... (Linking to discussion, not the statute, because it confirms that it is in fact enforced.)

Come to think of it, this would also include smart glasses, etc. And whatever those LG devices were doing. Paging the AG...

bonsai_spool•18 minutes ago

> This is, I believe, a felony in Massachusetts.

I hear this a lot but such a perspective elides the novelty (and the actual question):

If I devise a mechanical device that semi-faithfully creates marks that convey information about a conversation - but which does not offer a way to replay the conversation whatsoever - does that constitute a recording subject to two-party consent?

If so, how does this relate to a potential decision to write notes about a call right after as a memo/in my diary?

If so, how does this relate to having my secretary record the conversation in shorthand while listening furtively to the conversation?

jsw97•4 minutes ago

Not sure why my comment merited a downvote. In any case, quoting from Mass law:

https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Cha...

    The term ''interception'' means to secretly hear, secretly record, 
    or aid another to secretly hear or secretly record the contents of
    any wire or oral communication through the use of any intercepting
    device by any person other than a person given prior authority by 
    all parties to such communication.

    The term ''contents'', when used with respect to any wire or
    oral communication, means any information concerning the identity
    of the parties to such communication or the existence, contents,
    substance, purport, or meaning of that communication.

If you get content, useful or otherwise, from the recording, you are violating the law. Unless you fall under one the exemptions, which you probably don't.

So first question, "devise a mechanical device" -- violates. Second, "write notes", no. Third question, "secretary record" -- no.

khalic•about 1 hour ago

I don’t think it bothers me, as long as the audio isn’t stored… but I can definitely see why it would bother some people.

The device microphones are already always listening, this just makes use of that sound a lot more than just listening for “hey siri”.

Espressosaurus•43 minutes ago

How does this work in two party consent states? It seems nuts on the face of it.

I guess they devolve liability onto the user and wash their hands of it?

bryanrasmussen•24 minutes ago

it works, in an American context, because the states would have to take it to court and determine if this actually fell under the rules of making a recording.

Argument for, there is no recording stored anywhere thus it does not need consent.

Argument against, there is obviously a recording made. A recording is made and transmitted between devices and Apple and afterwards deleted, that this happens almost real time as the conversation does not change the fact a recording exists for some short time.

Probably Argument for wins, but assume at some point the transcriptions become nearly perfect then expect it to be litigated again.

jsw97•9 minutes ago

Argument for only wins because of the weight of the lawyers they can bring to bear. Clearly ephemeral recording for the purposes of processing violates the spirit of the statute at least. And there is this, from the MGL:

    The term ''interception'' means to secretly hear, secretly record, 
    or aid another to secretly hear or secretly record the contents of
    any wire or oral communication through the use of any intercepting
    device by any person other than a person given prior authority by 
    all parties to such communication.

https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleI/Cha...

Oh wait, they are not helping another person to "hear", only to see the words spoken or a summary thereof. Oops, MGL has you there too:

    The term ''contents'', when used with respect to any wire or
    oral communication, means any information concerning the identity
    of the parties to such communication or the existence, contents,
    substance, purport, or meaning of that communication.

So if you wear a watch in a conversation without consent, and then after the fact the watch tells you who was in the conversation or what it was about, that seems like a facial violation. Maybe it falls under a common carrier exemption, but then that puts legal liability on the wearer not Apple.

This may become a case of we don't enforce the laws against large companies.

j16sdiz•31 minutes ago

It is "not stored" "not recorded".

moepstar•about 1 hour ago

That’s actually a good thing to me, wasn’t going to get another Apple Watch anyways - now that’s an even firmer decision now.

My reasoning so far was that I absolutely didn’t get the use out of it I envisioned and, to my even bigger surprise, the integration between Watch and iPhone wasn’t even that good…

stranded22•25 minutes ago

I’m audhd - I LOVE this. It will be so helpful (I hope)

bondarchuk•about 1 hour ago

Crazy that this is about to be normalized. Can't help but think the discourse of "they already record everything anyway" of the past couple years (even in the absence of complete proof) has played a part.

throwatdem12311•27 minutes ago

Never thought it would be Apple to normalize it either. I’ve been in the ecosystem because they have a proven track record of privacy and security and taking principled stands.

I’m sure the NSA is salivating at this and I don’t trust the current administration not to legislate back doors.

Terrible misstep from Apple from my perspective. This is their “they removed Don’t Be Evil from the website” moment for me.

Schiendelman•44 minutes ago

There's been plenty of evidence that nothing is recorded or sent back, hardly "absence of complete proof". People have identified basically everything coming from the network stack of an iPhone.

This is already normalized in most modern office buildings. There are video and audio recording devices in virtually all common areas. This started a bit after private offices were done away with.

sillyfluke•23 minutes ago

>There's been plenty of evidence that nothing is recorded or sent back, hardly "absence of complete proof".

You may have a different understanding of the word "complete" than the standard definition.

Unless you are claiming the verifiers kept the watches being tested under constant survellance for several years, the proof you are alluding to may only prove that it is not routinely sending or recording data. It does not prove they can't turn it on whenever they feel like it, or when obeying a time-limited and geofenced mass surveillance order.

hncbw02z5a•30 minutes ago

built a meeting bot once, forgot the consent chime, legal killed it same week

troupo•about 1 hour ago

Quote: "Watching this Apple event tout how iPhones will soon be able to record ambient audio/conversations and transcribe "high level notes" for you. It's billed as private and end-to-end encrypted, but I think the bigger harm is the normalization of always-listening devices. It's creepy and not normal."

https://mastodon.social/@zackwhittaker/117242363654801025

archerx•about 1 hour ago

Yea were they not paying attention during the Microsoft Recall debacle?

basisword•about 1 hour ago

Personally I think it's a silly risk for Apple to do this - but don't Granola and a bunch of other high profile apps already do this? Add to that the number of meetings I'm on now filled with 'John's AI companion' recording the entire thing largely because people enable this nonsense and don't know or care how to stop it. The ship has sailed sadly. The more of this always on recording we have the more society is going to change. We already hear about young people scared to have fun because they might be recorded. Next it'll be people scared to share opinions (or anything gossipy) because it could be recorded and plausible deniability no longer exists.