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The Apple Watch Series 12, unveiled last week, introduced Live Rewind and Siri Recap, features that process conversations occurring around the wearer. The former provides a transcript of the last 15 seconds of audio, while the latter automatically creates short summaries of conversations. These innovations have already raised concerns among human rights activists, as they pose a risk to the privacy and consent of those around the wearer.
Live Rewind works like a conversation rewind: double-click the Digital Crown, the watch takes the last 15 seconds of audio from the device's microphone and processes it in Secure Exclave on the S11 chip. The data is then transmitted to a nearby iPhone, where a speech-to-text algorithm converts speech into text. A transcript of the conversation is saved, after which the original audio is deleted.
Apple suggests using the feature, for example, to remember a book recommendation, an interesting thought from a colleague, or a phrase the user misheard.
When Live Rewind is activated, the watch beeps even in silent mode, and an animation of the microphone appears on the screen. However, this alert only alerts others to the event and does not allow them to consent to the recording. This may be particularly relevant in the United States, where 11 states require the consent of all participants to record a conversation.
Another new feature, Siri Recap, can analyze user conversations throughout the day and create notes based on them, generating a title, summary, and key points of the conversation. No exact transcription of the audio is created, speakers are not identified, and the original audio is not saved. Therefore, there is no separate audio alert when Siri Recap is running.
Apple emphasizes that transcripts and transcripts of conversations are protected by end-to-end encryption, and even Apple employees cannot access the raw audio. Furthermore, Siri Recap is not always enabled by default; users can choose when it should run.
Adam Schwartz, a privacy litigator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told The Register that people should be able to decide for themselves whether technology can record their conversations.
According to him, people have virtually no way to consent to or opt out of such conversation processing in advance. The EFF fears that the widespread use of such technologies will lead to self-censorship and undermine the spontaneity and privacy of ordinary conversations.
Live Rewind works like a conversation rewind: double-click the Digital Crown, the watch takes the last 15 seconds of audio from the device's microphone and processes it in Secure Exclave on the S11 chip. The data is then transmitted to a nearby iPhone, where a speech-to-text algorithm converts speech into text. A transcript of the conversation is saved, after which the original audio is deleted.
Apple suggests using the feature, for example, to remember a book recommendation, an interesting thought from a colleague, or a phrase the user misheard.
When Live Rewind is activated, the watch beeps even in silent mode, and an animation of the microphone appears on the screen. However, this alert only alerts others to the event and does not allow them to consent to the recording. This may be particularly relevant in the United States, where 11 states require the consent of all participants to record a conversation.
Another new feature, Siri Recap, can analyze user conversations throughout the day and create notes based on them, generating a title, summary, and key points of the conversation. No exact transcription of the audio is created, speakers are not identified, and the original audio is not saved. Therefore, there is no separate audio alert when Siri Recap is running.
Apple emphasizes that transcripts and transcripts of conversations are protected by end-to-end encryption, and even Apple employees cannot access the raw audio. Furthermore, Siri Recap is not always enabled by default; users can choose when it should run.
Adam Schwartz, a privacy litigator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told The Register that people should be able to decide for themselves whether technology can record their conversations.
According to him, people have virtually no way to consent to or opt out of such conversation processing in advance. The EFF fears that the widespread use of such technologies will lead to self-censorship and undermine the spontaneity and privacy of ordinary conversations.
The organization advised Apple Watch owners to think twice before using new features and to be respectful of their conversation partners.