Scary... why is Apple live listening to you?

7 hours ago

2 min read

If you've been on social media lately and seen anything about Apple's Audio Intelligence feature, then you know what this email is about. It originally started as Live Listen, a feature released back in 2018 that allows you to turn on and listen to your iPhone's microphone through your Airpods along with having it live transcribe whatever conversations it picks up. No big deal - it's helpful for those hard of hearing or want help taking notes in a lecture or doctor's office.

But the scare hammer really dropped when iOS27 came out last month and introduced Audio Intelligence, which passively listens using your iPhone and Apple watch to:

Listen for emergency sounds such as sirens, smoke/carbon monoxide alarms, doorbells, or a baby crying, then sending a visual alert to your wrist.
Listening to music playing around you and using Shazam it to display the song title and artist.
A new feature called Live Rewind that recalls the last 15 seconds of nearby speech as a text transcription.
And Siri Recap, which ambiently takes notes on your daily conversations and generates high-level Apple Intelligence summaries, titles, and key points 😱

The Takewaway

Apple says that all audio processing is done in an isolated secure enclave on your local devices (so it never goes to the cloud), that everything is encrypted and is not stored anywhere, whatsoever.

But advocates are calling Apple's Audio Intelligence the end of personal privacy. Every Apple phone could now potentially be recording and transcribing everything you and those around your are saying, 24x7. Apple could be protecting your information today, but what about later if they decide to sell the data to advertisers. Or, what if law enforcement gets involved and uses this technology to listen in on conversations. Would you like it listening to personal or intimate conversations? What about corporate espionage or employee monitoring?

But the real problem is this: we may be coming very quickly to a future where if you're riding a bus, standing in a checkout line or speaking at a local community board meeting, a stranger next to you could have a device silently logging, processing and summarizing your words.

This will fundamentally alter human behavior. We will stop speaking freely in public out of a constant underlying paranoia that we are being surveilled by the devices around us.

Bad news - you or I can't stop this.

The only thing I can recommend is that you not opt-in to Siri Recap or Live Rewind when your iPhone updates to iOS27. You won't know if the person next to you has it turned on, but at least you can do your part to protect your privacy.

Stay safe out there.

-Attila

New Friday Funnies!

Why are ghosts such bad liars?

You can see right through them.

What kind of ship does Dracula have?

A blood vessel.

How do you fix a leaky pumpkin?

With a pumpkin patch

How do you make a tissue dance?

Put a little boogie in it.

What do dad ghosts like to drink?