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What information does Siri or Alexa collect and save?

Old_JoeOld_Joe
edited November 2022 in Off-Topic
With respect to Siri or Alexa, you are kidding yourself if you don't think that every word that they "hear" can't be recorded and stored somewhere, somehow:
What information does Siri collect and save?

Apple revealed that Siri stores a user's data for up to two years. Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told Wired.com that all queries are transferred to Apple’s data farm, where a random number is generated to represent the user. The user number is “disassociated" from the voice file after six months, but the voice data is kept for up to 18 more months for "testing and product improvement purposes".

“Apple may keep anonymized Siri data for up to two years,” Muller said. “If a user turns Siri off, both identifiers are deleted immediately along with any associated data.”
Link to information source

And also this:
If you use Siri, privacy experts say you need to be concerned. Apple's voice-controlled personal assistant stores your commands and keeps them for years.

If you have Siri, you probably thought it was pretty cool. Just ask your phone a question or give it a command and Siri goes to work. What you may not know is that it collects that data and stores it for two years. University of Richmond Law Professor, Jim Gibson says if you use Siri, there's not much you can do to change it. "I think if you don't like it, the answer is not to use Siri," he says.

In Tech reports, Apple has said the data it collects is anonymous and is used to enhance Siri. "The good thing about Siri is that it doesn't actually tie your individual identification to the search, instead it takes you and other people like you, in that location and aggregates that for their use," Gibson explains.

Cyber Expert, DJ Rivera says while Apple claims data collected from Siri is anonymous, it wouldn't take much to tie the results back to you. "There is an identifier. It doesn't identify the person but it identifies the device and obviously, if you use Apple services, you have provided your information," Rivera explains.
Link to information source

If Siri is keeping a record of your "commands", what's to prevent it from keeping a record of everything else that it "hears"?

And also this:
What kind of personal data does Amazon Alexa collect?

Alexa does listen to every word it can hear, but most of it is never stored or sent off to the cloud. Products like Alexa work by use of a "hot word" and an Echo or Fire TV has to listen for that word to operate. If it hears the hot word, it will shift gears and be ready to process what comes next. From Amazon's Alexa Device FAQ page:

Of course, everything electronic can be exploited and some older models of Amazon's Echo were vulnerable to a hack that had it record everything it could hear, but it required modifying the Echo itself and some soldering. For the most part, these things are safe because they stay locked up inside your home.

Once Alexa is initialized because the hot word was detected, what she can hear is then streamed to the cloud for Amazon to process. That's where things get a little worrisome for people who are privacy-conscious, but the reality is pretty benign.
Link to information source

Comments

  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    In My Home I Don't Want or Trust Anything Designed by a Large Business to Be Able to Listen and Record Whatever They May Decide To.

    PERIOD!
  • CrashCrash
    +1.
  • AndyJ
    + another 1. Dunno tho; appears they can get personal info at some level no matter what extra precautions we take.
  • LewisBraham
    edited November 2022
    I think in 2022 unless you're very poor and off the grid or very rich and can pay to be off the grid, you have to assume that digitally you have no private life whatsoever. I forget whether it was Zuckerberg or some other tech bigwig that said about a decade ago the age of privacy is over. Somewhere in a server farm perhaps in Iowa there is the digital equivalent of a filing cabinet with a file folder with your name on it. Mostly, though, that information is used to sell you stuff. Occasionally, if you have a funny last name, it could be used to spy on you or even imprison you: https://time.com/6096903/september-11-legal-history/
  • carew388carew388
    +1 Lewis Even, college commencement programs from 40 years ago are posted on the internet (my school and name posted)-including schools like Northwestern, Washington University in St. Louis and Notre Dame !
  • CrashCrash
    Yes, I suppose it is unavoidable. To LIVE, to EXIST today is to have no privacy. For what it's worth, my entire FB profile is a fiction. I hope some geek at some server farm is choking on all the disconnects.
  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    The only thing Google that I use is Google Earth, because there's nothing else like it. No Facebook, Twitter, or any other "social" operation other than, of course, MFO. Amazon knows all about much of the stuff that I buy, but they're welcome to that. For search engine, DuckDuckGo, which doesn't track.

    Firefox has built-in non-tracking and disallows all 3rd party cookies, additionally Privacy Badger catches whatever Firefox might miss. For example, right here on MFO Privacy Badger has blocked www.google-analytics.com. Finally, AdBlock disallows most ads.

    I check my cookies from time to time and clean house there.

    So yes, of course there's a certain amount of personal information out there, mostly from public records, but there's not much that they can do with it. They know where I live, and probably that I detest Trump and his ilk. Good for them.
  • LewisBraham
    edited November 2022
    I was at a reading some years ago for a book about social media and privacy and the author said that Facebook creates “shadow profiles” of people who aren’t on it but are friends or relatives of people who are. So, for instance if your wife is on Facebook, they could create a profile of you based on the info she provides. This book was about though the government using social media to spy on citizens post Patriot Act during our “War on Terror.” Being of the “wrong” religion or of the wrong national origin could lead to more attempts to monitor citizens or their family members even when they aren’t on social media. For most people though it probably leads to you getting advertisements in various forms for certain products they think based on your profile you might buy.
    Here’s a good explanation of how shadow profiles work: https://howtogeek.com/768652/what-are-facebook-shadow-profiles-and-should-you-be-worried/amp/
  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    Yes, all of the stuff in that article is highly probably accurate. Still, most of the accumulated information is broadly designed to allow advertising algorithms to target me. Target away... lord knows Amazon does, and occasionally they will in fact show me something that I might not have thought of myself. With Ad block, and paid subscriptions to a big chunk of news sources, I almost never see an actual advertisement- just blank spaces on a page where others are subjected to advertising.

    I won't subscribe to any streaming service that uses advertising, and it's been many years since I bothered to watch any TV other than public broadcasting.

    I may not be "off the grid", but I'm damned near off the advertising grid.
  • Derf
    edited November 2022
    O_J said : : "I won't subscribe to any streaming service that uses advertising, and it's been many years since I bothered to watch any TV other than public broadcasting."
    WOW !! Just in case you aren't aware, there is a button on the remote for fast forward. 5 minutes of ads take 15 seconds to get through.
    A Blessed Sunday to you & family, Derf
  • LewisBraham
    Good strategies.
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