Beware: Apple Watch may record parts of a conversation without the consent of both speakers.

SAFETY

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Privacy is Surveillance

With the release of the Apple Watch Series 12, Apple decided that it was possible to record people’s conversations without their consent.

The latest Apple Watch comes equipped with Audio Intelligence, a set of AI audio processing capabilities customized for the company’s S11 chip. Its features include: audio recognition, music recognition with Shazam, live rewind and Siri repeat.

“Live Rewind lets you instantly see the last 15 seconds of a conversation as text,” Apple explains in its technical overview. [PDF]. “Siri Recap summarizes conversations throughout the day and produces high-level notes generated by Apple Intelligence so you can stay on top of what’s happening and catch up later.”

By double-pressing the Digital Crown (that’s what Apple grandly calls the button on its Watch), Live Rewind takes the audio stream from the Watch’s microphone, processes it in the Secure Exclave on the S11 chip, and sends the data to the user’s nearest iPhone, which runs a speech-to-text algorithm on a 15-second audio segment. The received text is saved, but the sound is deleted.

The wearer’s watch beeps even in silent mode to alert nearby people and provides a visual cue to those who can see the device’s face.

However, bystanders alerted to the recording—to the extent that they were aware of the tone—did not consent to the recording, which is a legal requirement in 11 US states that have all-party consent laws.

Apple characterizes the implementation of brief eavesdropping as respecting privacy. This is discussed in the How Live Rewind Respects Others section, citing the audio cue and visual animation on the screen.

Siri Recap, meanwhile, “summarizes conversations throughout the day and produces high-level notes generated by Apple Intelligence so you can stay in the present and catch up later.”

Apple also calls this an act of respect.

“By design, Siri Recap does not create recordings, create a transcript, or identify or identify speakers,” Apple’s technical documentation explains. “The conclusion is a high-level summary, comparable to the notes a person might write after a conversation. There is no audio signal because the raw audio is not saved, and there is no way to restore the original audio from Siri Recap or share the raw audio with anyone.”

The implication is that Apple’s non-consensual audio processing is less subject to public scorn than the middle finger Meta raised with its AI glasses. That may be true, but privacy advocates remain unimpressed.

“Our right to privacy of conversations must include the freedom from others to use technology without our explicit consent to document what we say,” Adam Schwartz, director of privacy litigation at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in an email to Register. “Otherwise people will self-censor and the conversation will lose spontaneity and intimacy.

“So, the EFF is disappointed that Apple is releasing a new Audio Intelligence feature that can reportedly create a transcript or written summary of what people are saying next to the Apple Watch. There’s really no practical way for people to consent or reject a recording.

“We encourage people to think twice before using this technology out of respect for the privacy of other people’s conversations. While it remains to be seen how government wiretapping laws will apply to this new technology, it is clear that constant monitoring of our conversations is an unacceptable burden on our conversational privacy.” ®