We’ve all experienced it. You’ve wrapped up a conversation with a friend or loved one, only to have an advert about the exact thing you were talking about appear the next time you scroll through Instagram or watch a YouTube video. Big coincidence or tech world conspiracy? I’m afraid I don’t have the answer – but if we’re already assuming our gadgets are snooping in to every word we say, why fret over ones that are upfront about their listening habits?
First, Meta’s new Audio AI Glasses asked whether removing the camera was enough to shake the “pervert glasses” label. Then Apple revealed the Watch Series 12 and Watch Ultra 4’s new Audio Intelligence abilities would always be listening, in order to provide live rewind and AI-generated conversation summaries. The former promised text snippets from the last fifteen seconds of conversation, while the latter would run you through each of the day’s major talking points.
Privacy concerns over Apple’s features were rapidly raised, to the point Apple issued an eleven page document explaining what privacy safeguards are in place. Basically the captured audio isn’t actually stored and never leaves your device; it’s deleted in real time, with a shortened version uploaded to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute servers for AI processing. The transcript that’s sent back is end-to-end encrypted. You’ve also got to opt in to enable it.
Legally these features live in a grey area: if no ‘recordings’ are made, you don’t need to ask anyone else’s permission to use these features. Personally I’m fine with that.
Meta’s glasses, meanwhile, are only always-on in the sense they’re listening for you to say “hey Meta” and give its digital assistant a task. However banal it may be. Audio is treated largely the same, heading to a data centre somewhere for processing before being expunged.
Even if these firms were stretching the truth and my song requests, kitchen timers or random Wikipedia searches were somehow being used for something nefarious rather than being instantly deleted, I’m not sure I’d lose much sleep. We’ve been signing license agreements for years at this point, effectively giving gadget makers carte blanche do do what they like with our personal data.
If it turned out Apple was secretly backup up my recordings to pass to the government, I’d just feel sorry for the person assigned to listening to them all. I’m definitely not sitting on any state secrets. The same goes for the Alexa speaker in my kitchen, the Android phone in my pocket, and the LG TV in my living room.
But it’s not all about me. I don’t get to say how someone else should feel about being digitally snooped on. Once you step out of the house with a gadget that’s always listening, whatever it’s doing behind the scenes, you’ve got to respect others’ views. That recordings may or may not ‘exist’ to access later is a technicality.
Consent is precisely the thing the companies behind these gadgets – and many of their customers – seem to have a hard time grasping. Privacy is a basic human right, however you define it. Do we really need to start holding up a pair of smart glasses when teaching kids about “No means No”?
