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So it turns out your phone is eavesdropping on you

Iain

I saw an article today that confirmed what I have suspected for years now - mobile phones have been monitoring us and using the info to sell to advertisers:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr4rvr495rgo

Apple has agreed to pay $95m (£77m) to settle a court case alleging some of its devices were listening to people without their permission.

The tech giant was accused of eavesdropping on its customers through its virtual assistant Siri.

I remember testing this about 5 years ago to prove it to my wife as she was skeptical - I kept adding into our conversatons that we should got to Disneyland (I warned her I would do this as a test as it is somewhere we have no interest in going to) and sure enough we started to get adverts appearing after a week about the park.

I suspect the other big players (Microsoft, Google etc) are also up to this but are much better at hiding it or have added wording in their Terms and Conditions to allow it.

It is more than a little concerning.

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  • in reply to Bunny
    Bunny said:
    neither the action nor the settlement - in which Apple denies wrongdoing and the claims - confirms or proves anything.

    From https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2019/09/06/eavesdropping-and-spying-by-smart-tvs-and-devices/

    Apple announced that it "will turn it off by default and bring the human evaluation process in-house." Jeb Su, "Apple Apologizes for Eavesdropping on Customers, Keeping Siri Recordings Without Permission," Forbes (Aug. 28, 2019).

    5 years ago Apple admitted to it - the case here is that they never actually stopped.

    Agreed it doesn't confirm or deny they were in the wrong but they were caught once doing this and agreed to pay up again now - can you possibly draw the conclusion that they are innocent?

  • in reply to Bunny
    Bunny said:
    Per the article, neither the action nor the settlement - in which Apple denies wrongdoing and the claims - confirms or proves anything. 

    This is just standard legal practice in lawsuits - but if you think a company with the immense legal defence resources of Apple would base a $95 million settlement on unsubstantiated claims then you would be naive in the extreme.

    This is about as bad as it gets in lawsuit terms - the companies always settle so they can use NDAs to lock down any details and stop people talking about it.