Watch what you say: Apple opens the door to a nightmare world of always-listening tech
Watch what you say: Apple opens the door to a nightmare world of always-listening tech
小心你的言辞：苹果开启了“全时监听”科技的噩梦之门
Apple this week announced plans to roll out “always-listening” features for newer Apple Watches. One of the features, Live Rewind, lets you “go back in time” and replay the most recent 15 seconds of ambient audio as a text transcript. The other feature, Siri Recap, listens throughout the day and summarizes your conversations as high-level notes into a written report on your iPhone.
苹果本周宣布计划为新款 Apple Watch 推出“全时监听”功能。其中一项功能“实时回放”（Live Rewind）允许你“时光倒流”，将最近 15 秒的环境音频以文本转录的形式重现。另一项功能“Siri 总结”（Siri Recap）则会在全天候进行监听，并将你的对话概括为高层级的笔记，生成一份书面报告发送到你的 iPhone 上。
Apple claims these features are helpful to “jog” your memory. The massive trade-off is that your Apple Watch is always listening to you and anyone else within earshot while the feature is enabled.
苹果声称这些功能有助于“唤醒”你的记忆。但巨大的代价是，当该功能开启时，你的 Apple Watch 会始终监听你以及周围任何处于听力范围内的人。
Given these features are bound to be controversial, it’s clear that Apple put thought into the security and privacy guardrails before shipping these features (which may still change). The tech giant says on its support page that the always-listening tech doesn’t record or store audio, and that the recaps are end-to-end encrypted so that any summarized data is inaccessible to anyone else, not even Apple. And, its security documentation [PDF] detailing how the features work is worth reading as well.
鉴于这些功能注定会引发争议，显而易见，苹果在发布这些功能（未来仍可能调整）之前，已经在安全和隐私防护措施上进行了考量。这家科技巨头在其支持页面上表示，这种全时监听技术不会录制或存储音频，且总结内容经过端到端加密，因此任何第三方（甚至包括苹果自己）都无法访问这些汇总数据。此外，其详细说明功能运作方式的安全文档 [PDF] 也值得一读。
What is more concerning to me, to underscore on a point I made in a Bluesky post, is that Apple is opening the door to a world where other companies, device makers, and app developers try to recreate or rival Apple’s technology and do a far shoddier job, all the while creating a worse surveillance monster and introducing new security and privacy risks along the way.
令我更为担忧的是——正如我在 Bluesky 的帖子中所强调的那样——苹果正在开启一个先例：其他公司、设备制造商和应用开发者可能会试图模仿或竞争苹果的这项技术，但他们的做法可能粗糙得多，从而制造出更可怕的监控怪兽，并在此过程中引入新的安全和隐私风险。
So far there have been a few companies and startups that made always-listening devices, like pendants, often including AI. Apple by comparison is one of the largest technology companies in the world and its global reach means millions of people will get these features and switch them on. Apple’s market dominance, coupled with its decision to make always-listening tech, sets a precedent that signals it’s OK for other companies to follow suit and normalize this intrusive tech. It also implies that there is money to be made in developing this technology, making it a space ripe for disruption (or exploitation) by profiteers.
到目前为止，已经有一些公司和初创企业制造过全时监听设备（如挂坠），通常集成了人工智能。相比之下，苹果是全球最大的科技公司之一，其全球影响力意味着数以百万计的用户将获得并开启这些功能。苹果的市场主导地位，加上其开发全时监听技术的决定，树立了一个先例，向其他公司传递了一个信号：效仿并使这种侵入性技术常态化是“没问题”的。这也暗示了开发该技术有利可图，使其成为投机者进行颠覆（或剥削）的温床。
Bloomberg reports lawyers are already finding that Apple’s always-listening tech is at odds with the law in several U.S. states. Some states require all parties’ consent before being recorded, setting up the feature for potential legal battles down the line. This comes amid the rise of smart camera-enabled “pervert glasses” like those made by Meta and Snap, which have supercharged abuse and harassment against people by recording them without consent.
据彭博社报道，律师们已经发现苹果的全时监听技术与美国多个州的法律存在冲突。一些州要求在录音前必须获得所有当事人的同意，这为该功能未来的法律纠纷埋下了隐患。与此同时，Meta 和 Snap 等公司推出的智能摄像头“偷拍眼镜”正在兴起，这些设备通过未经许可的录制，加剧了针对他人的虐待和骚扰行为。
Privacy for me, but not for thee?
我的隐私，而非你的隐私？
While Apple has emphasized security and privacy features for its own users, it hasn’t explained how people opt out of its customers’ recordings. I chatted this week with Em, a digital privacy and security technologist, activist, and author of the Control Alt Delete blog, and whose work you have no doubt seen while she wrote for Privacy Guides. Em told me that these new Apple features follow a “recent trend of gadgets that are constantly collecting information from surroundings, including from people who aren’t wearing or buying these gadgets themselves,” like smart glasses and speakers.
虽然苹果强调了其用户自身的安全和隐私功能，但并未解释其他人该如何拒绝被其用户录音。本周我与数字隐私与安全技术专家、活动家及“Control Alt Delete”博客作者 Em 进行了交流，你可能在 Privacy Guides 上读过她的文章。Em 告诉我，苹果的这些新功能遵循了“近期的一种趋势，即设备不断从周围环境中收集信息，包括那些并未佩戴或购买这些设备的人”，就像智能眼镜和智能音箱一样。
Em said that while anyone can make notes of every conversation they have, this kind of technology “normalizes it happening at all time and in every context.” “Even if Apple seems to have put some thought into protecting the privacy and consent of the people using the Apple Watch, this technology doesn’t do much to protect the privacy and consent of everyone interacting with people using it,” Em told me.
Em 表示，虽然任何人都可以记录自己的谈话，但这种技术“使这种行为在任何时间、任何场景下都变得常态化”。“即使苹果似乎在保护 Apple Watch 用户自身的隐私和知情同意方面花了一些心思，但这项技术在保护与用户互动的所有人的隐私和知情同意方面，并没有起到多大作用，”Em 告诉我。
I also asked Thorin Klosowski, a senior security and privacy activist at Electronic Frontier Foundation, for his thoughts and he said similarly that Apple’s approach is largely about protecting its customers’ data but does little for anyone else. “Increasingly we’re seeing tech companies frame privacy this way — as personal responsibility — but it has never been just about that, it’s a collective effort that relies as much on personal choice as it does social contracts,” said Klosowski. He added that we should all be free to converse without fear of tech documenting everything that’s being said. “Especially when combined with all the other similar devices we’re seeing, whether that’s pendants or glasses or rings, there is absolutely a risk of normalization here.”
我还询问了电子前沿基金会（EFF）的高级安全与隐私活动家 Thorin Klosowski 的看法，他同样认为苹果的做法主要是为了保护其客户的数据，但对其他人几乎没有保护作用。“我们越来越多地看到科技公司以这种方式定义隐私——将其视为个人责任——但隐私从来不仅仅是个人责任，它是一项集体努力，既依赖于个人选择，也依赖于社会契约，”Klosowski 说道。他补充说，我们都应该能够自由交谈，而不必担心科技会记录下所说的一切。“特别是当它与我们看到的其他类似设备（无论是挂坠、眼镜还是戒指）结合使用时，这里绝对存在常态化的风险。”
EFF’s privacy litigation director Adam Schwartz added that since there’s no practical means for people to consent or decline recording, “we suggest people should think twice before using this technology, out of respect to the conversational privacy of others.”
EFF 隐私诉讼主任 Adam Schwartz 补充说，由于目前没有切实可行的方法让人们对录音表示同意或拒绝，“出于对他人的对话隐私的尊重，我们建议人们在使用这项技术前三思而后行。”
For its part, Apple says on its support page that users should “consider those around you where conversations may be private or sensitive.” The broader message Apple seems to be sending is: Prepare for a world where everyday devices are always listening in.
就苹果而言，其在支持页面上表示，用户应“在对话可能涉及隐私或敏感内容时，考虑周围的人”。苹果似乎正在传递一个更广泛的信息：准备好迎接一个日常设备始终在监听的世界吧。