Apple Whistleblower Goes Public Over 'Lack of Action' (theguardian.com) 54
A former Apple contractor who helped blow the whistle on the company's programme to listen to users' Siri recordings has decided to go public, in protest at the lack of action taken as a result of the disclosures. From a report: In a letter announcing his decision, sent to all European data protection regulators, Thomas le Bonniec said: "It is worrying that Apple (and undoubtedly not just Apple) keeps ignoring and violating fundamental rights and continues their massive collection of data. I am extremely concerned that big tech companies are basically wiretapping entire populations despite European citizens being told the EU has one of the strongest data protection laws in the world. Passing a law is not good enough: it needs to be enforced upon privacy offenders."
Le Bonniec, 25, worked as a subcontractor for Apple in its Cork offices, transcribing user requests in English and French, until he quit in the summer of 2019 due to ethical concerns with the work. "They do operate on a moral and legal grey area" he told the Guardian at the time, "and they have been doing this for years on a massive scale. They should be called out in every possible way." Following the revelations of Le Bonniec and his colleagues, Apple promised sweeping changes to its "grading" program, which involved thousands of contractors listening to recordings made, both accidentally and deliberately, using Siri. The company apologised, brought the work in-house, and promised that it would only grade recordings from users who had explicitly opted-in to the practice.
Le Bonniec, 25, worked as a subcontractor for Apple in its Cork offices, transcribing user requests in English and French, until he quit in the summer of 2019 due to ethical concerns with the work. "They do operate on a moral and legal grey area" he told the Guardian at the time, "and they have been doing this for years on a massive scale. They should be called out in every possible way." Following the revelations of Le Bonniec and his colleagues, Apple promised sweeping changes to its "grading" program, which involved thousands of contractors listening to recordings made, both accidentally and deliberately, using Siri. The company apologised, brought the work in-house, and promised that it would only grade recordings from users who had explicitly opted-in to the practice.
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I thought we'd decided to do Brave New World, not 1984? Now I'm so confused. :-(
On the bright side, now that our elected representatives and lawyers and doctors and accountants and senior managers and leading researchers are doing lots of work from home and communicating remotely, what could possibly go wrong with embedding listening devices with network access and Internet connections in those homes? It's not as if these people deal with any sensitive or confidential information, and we can surely count on
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I thought we'd decided to do Brave New World, not 1984? Now I'm so confused. :-(
Does it matter? They're both dystopias.
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But do THAT many people talk to Siri or whatever voice assistants that much or that often?
I mean, again, likely just me...but I cannot STAND to talk to a machine.
One of my pet peeves over the decades has been just dialing into customer service for some company and the voice prompts started making you answer questions vocally, instead of just pushing a number key on the keypad.
I can't fucking stand that....I especially hated it back in the day, when you had t
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Hm. Usually when I get the operator I realize how good I had it talking to the computer.
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You are not alone. I have various devices with some sort of built-in "assistant" feature. It's usually one of the first things I switch off, along with anything else that tries to be smart or phones home. We don't seem to have reached the stage yet where these technologies offer more than very simple functionality that I could achieve almost as quickly and more reliably with a standard UI, and those UIs don't come with the same downsides.
How do you think voice recognition works? (Score:5, Insightful)
The software needs validated inputs. The only way to get validated inputs is for a person to listen and tell the software what the correct input is.
It's not a high skill job, but you need people who are native speakers. So hiring contractors makes sense.
Whistleblower is telling everyone the business works the only way it can reasonably work. Thanks?
Re: How do you think voice recognition works? (Score:1)
Before we had mass privacy invasion devices in our house holds how did voice training ever happen? Did it never happen before Siri? How was the first version of Siri trained before it was forced on the public?
How have all the voice to text systems manage to do their jobs without violating everyone's privacy like Apple and ?Google?
No it isn't the only way.
How much Apple stock do you own?
Re: How do you think voice recognition works? (Score:4)
Before we had mass privacy invasion devices in our house holds how did voice training ever happen?
Poorly. And since the inputs weren't exactly the type the software was trying to recognize, the results weren't very good.
How have all the voice to text systems manage to do their jobs without violating everyone's privacy like Apple and ?Google?
Voice to text has never been reliable for general purpose speaking until very recently. It's still not what it needs to be.
It's like asking how people used to keep their food from spoiling before they got a refrigerator. Having an insulated box in your house and getting ice delivered every day is a bad substitute.
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Not really. There are other ways to do good training , but there are some problems.
1) if apple doesn't train the system for you then YOU have to take the time to train the system.
2) the template data needs to be stored locally, which until recently might be a challenge for a lot of phones.
( on the OTHER hand ... Apple/ Google are not honest or transparent with most people so that doesn't help, but there solution is a lot more efficient.)
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Uhh well if you recall when all these devices were launched people pointed out that it wasn't a good idea to have always listening microphones but we were derided by people like you who said: you think Apple/google/Amazone is going to listen to you hahaha
Quite frankly the real dumb thing here is that they aren't doing validation on the wake phrase before having contractors listen to the entire conversation. I don't think there would be the same concern if they were only listening to the parts intended for t
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Does anyone else out there, just as a matter of routine practice..... turn the voice assistants OFF on all your devices that come with one?
I disable not just voice assistants but the key monitoring hardware, microphone, camera, GPS etc. Very few programs that I want to use have any legitimate need to access these devices. If programs that don't need these accesses for the functions of the programs that I use then the programs are malware if they try to demand access to them and I treat them as such.
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So much this.
People have a fundamental misunderstanding of how a lot of technology works, and somehow that the mythical "AI fairy" does everything automatically.
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Yeah, there's nothing new here. Apple publicly apologized last year for how they were collecting recordings, broke the submission of recordings out as a separate opt-in from opting-in to Siri, and gave everyone the ability to delete previous recordings Apple had of them. It was a prompt, proper response that went above and beyond their legal obligations, but was in line with the expectations that Apple's customers have of them. As far as I can tell, this former employee cares more about seeing Apple punitiv
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You keep stating that legally it was all fine and there was no grey area and they didn't have to makes any of those changes, but much discussion of this behaviour when it first came to light was about exactly that question. It is far from clear that any argument based on consent would stand up to a legal challenge under the standards set by the GDPR and related national legislation in Europe, for example.
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Re: How do you think voice recognition works? (Score:2)
Ok google.
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Yes, and the Tesla Self driving cars will send over to Tesla videos when you need to turn off autopilot and take control of the car.
If you want the software to get easier to use, it needs real life results.
The good old software of yesteryear. Didn't need such review, because if you couldn't use it, than RTFM!
We had a lot of companies like Novel Die because they were so involved in making the software to be engineered perfect, they had forgot to take into account what the users wanted or needed.
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The software needs validated inputs. The only way to get validated inputs is for a person to listen and tell the software what the correct input is.
It's not a high skill job, but you need people who are native speakers. So hiring contractors makes sense.
Whistleblower is telling everyone the business works the only way it can reasonably work. Thanks?
I guess working in the tech industry I also made the assumption that people were listening at least some of the time. It's the only way to train a system that listens to human speech. My wife's accent actually works well with Siri, and it's highly unlikely that it's an accident.
What are people saying to their phone that they don't want someone else to hear?
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Bullshit, there are a million other ways to get voice samples. Of course they require either payment or work.
Doesn't seem like the biggest issue though? (Score:2)
I mean, ok - he called them out on what they were doing, and they responded with "sweeping changes". That's kind of how whistleblowing SHOULD work, right? You want the company to listen to the concerns and take action to correct things. By letting people "opt in" to having their Siri recordings translated, it pretty much solves the problem.
I really don't think you can expect voice recognition to improve if you're not accepting the idea that humans need to listen to the content and transcribe some of it a
Re: Doesn't seem like the biggest issue though? (Score:2)
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Just because you opted in doesn't mean everyone around you on the train opted in. What about their rights?
This is one of the most dangerous aspects of the large-scale data processing that happens today, IMHO. Organisations like the big social networks and profiling companies have successfully subverted the basic principles of privacy and data protection law by getting your friends and neighbours to do the physical spying for them. Why get you to tell them your phone number or provide photos of yourself when 23 of your friends will willingly let some random app they just installed upload their entire address boo
Re: Doesn't seem like the biggest issue though? (Score:2)
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A friend of mine jokingly walks into people's homes and yells out, "Siri, order 5000 blue sweaters! Deliver over night! Confirmed!"
First, it doesn't work. Because your friend didn't use the magic word. Which isn't "please" but "Hey".
Second, obviously it doesn't work because you didn't give anywhere near enough information. Including a credit card number.
Third, if it worked, and your friend came to my house, he'd get his fingers broken, and then he would pay for a delivery of 5,000 blue sweaters.
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I mean, ok - he called them out on what they were doing, and they responded with "sweeping changes".
They responded with announcing sweeping changes. No mention of whether or not they actually did anything (I'm betting they didn't given the whistleblower's latest decision).
Trust no one, limit what you do online (Score:2)
Not having social media accounts is one thing, but if you still do stupid things anyway, don't be shocked if they can still build a profile on you.
Storing files in the cloud means you're not the only one in control of your files anymore.
Searching for something online is not private, they have to know what you want in order to return results.
I may use a Mac and an iPhone, but I don't use Siri nor iCloud.
Re: Trust no one, limit what you do online (Score:2)
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Many of these companies that give you space to store your photos, use them to try AI type surveillance type applications.
Are you comfortable with your photos of yourself, friends and even strangers that might get into the pics if you're shooting in public....being in a database somewhere that likely some time will be scanned to
Re: Trust no one, limit what you do online (Score:2)
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Curiously, I believe there's no way to disable Siri on a HomePod. Sure, it's offered as an option but the device responses to microphone input anyway, mostly because it's so buggy. It's really a trash product, absolutely horrifying. Not that's I'm interested in fanning the conspiracy flames, but I don't believe it's actually possible to opt out of Siri, or the other voice assistants for that matter. I disable them and refuse to use them but thinking that you're improving privacy is IMO naive. Of course,
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How is Google scanning local files, exactly?
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Well, first, I didn't say they were scanning local files, I said that had a history of doing so. I made no claims on what they currently do.
Google purchased Picasa which published a local photo client. That's how they did it.
Apple. (Score:3, Interesting)
My only dealing with Apple was after managing a school with hundreds of iPads for years.
When it actually came to education use they were utter shite -in terms of accounts, user-sign-in, multiple users on the device, controls over what users could do, etc. etc..
Eventually it reached a head and I had to call their support to actually get to the bottom of a very simple problem that completely stopped us deploying iPads to new kids that year.
They had fuck-all interest. They didn't give a shit, couldn't care less. They literally told me that they didn't have an education department - anywhere. Nothing. They passed me from Singapore to Ireland to the US and all over, each time I had to explain the problem all over, each time to some 1st-level tech who was only able to reset grandma's password (they kept asking me for "the iPad's serial number" - I have 400 of them not working, all with the same problem, all of which were working last week, and we've done nothing to them and no certificates etc. have expired or changed - which one would you like?).
They had no method of dealing with us, no mass-deployment tools, nothing, not even a techy guy they could put me through to and NOBODY techy in the whole of the UK. This was years before Apple School Manager, which was shite, and they even tried to fob us with some crappy beta of it that did not work.
I decided to file a complaint, give that we were a paying customer. They passed me from pillar to post and wouldn't file it.
So I did it the legal way - I wrote a registered letter to their UK head office (actually in Ireland) and asked for details of their complaints procedure. They didn't respond. Strike 1, that's illegal.
I followed it up and nothing. Eventually some guy called me back from "the written complaints department". He said he was the head of the department but couldn't give me the details I asked for. He refused to give his name. He wouldn't file the complaint. He couldn't send me anything. Strike 2.
I then asked for him to respond in that manner to my letter so that I could show it to my boss, because I was being pushed for a resolution and Apple were failing to deliver any and refusing to lodge my complaint. The guy said they don't do that, they do not write letters. The HEAD of WRITTEN COMPLAINTS refused to respond to our complaint in writing, even to say "We acknowledge receipt of your letter", etc.
Strike 3.
I approached my bosses. Furnished them with the details. We removed all Apple devices, services and products. Overnight. You can't do business with a company that literally breaks the law in responding to basic legally-required requests for their (non-existent) complaints procedure.
All their support lines are for nothing more than "I forgot my password". Turning up at an Apple store with 400+ non-working devices and saying "fix your shit" was tempting, but my bosses were by then convinced that it was not possible to do business with Apple.
They still have never written back, chased that complaint, or resolved the problem. So we invested our next £100,000 in their rivals, who have fabulous support. And I have no sympathy.
P.S. iCloud is not GDPR compliant. They do not have, will not issue and I believe cannot issue, a GDPR compliance statement. They make nice-sounding noises, but they don't. And the reason was revealed in articles on The Register - iCloud is nothing more than thousands of AWS, Azure and other cloud instances, bought in from wherever it's cheapest to host.
Seriously, I tried my hardest to find a redeeming feature in doing business with them, and cannot. Fuck Apple.
Re: Apple. (Score:3)
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Probably Chromebooks and G Suite for Education.
Re: Apple. (Score:2)
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Apple's MDM tools are terrible. That's why there's an MDM API. And if you don't know what MDM is, you should learn, because it's how you manage iPads/iPhones/Androids/etc in a consistent way.
The vendor tools are no more than a demonstration of MDM capabilities. Many companies make their living on supplying comprehensive MDM tools that su
Re: Apple. (Score:2)
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P.S. iCloud is not GDPR compliant. They do not have, will not issue and I believe cannot issue, a GDPR compliance statement. They make nice-sounding noises, but they don't. And the reason was revealed in articles on The Register - iCloud is nothing more than thousands of AWS, Azure and other cloud instances, bought in from wherever it's cheapest to host.
This may come as a surprise to you, but using AWS, Azure, and/or Google Cloud as backend providers for storage, hosting, and so forth is actually a common practice. Sony operates a fairly massive AWS footprint that includes PSN, to the extent that Amazon spends an inordinate amount of time writing custom API functionality just for Sony. Where do you suppose all of that demographic and payment information is stored for millions of users world-wide? The same also goes for Rockstar Games, who also stores a sub
Does It Matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Give Apple credit (Score:2)
"The company apologised, brought the work in-house, and promised that it would only grade recordings from users who had explicitly opted-in to the practice."
Yes, it took a whistleblower, but when they took action they didn't make up excuses. They appear to have done a, "My bad," and fixed the problem in a manner that sounds reasonable. it's a win for everyone involved - whistleblower, company, and end users.
The world would be a much better place if other corporations were half this responsive and accounta
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Turn it off if you don't like it. (Score:2)
There is no surveillance obviously, because Siri only listens when I say "Hey Siri" or press a button. So just don't say "Hey Siri, what's the name of my drug dealer". And if it isn't obvious, don't say "Hey Siri" while you have sex with anyone. Be careful if you are with one of the 1568 people with a first name of Siri.