Apple Inc.’s new always-listening artificial intelligence features for Apple Watches could put eavesdropping laws to the test, according to legal experts.
This week, Apple announced Siri Recap, which generates summaries of conversations users had throughout the day. Another tool, Live Rewind, can display a text transcription of what was said during the previous 15 seconds of a conversation and can be summoned by double-pressing the Apple Watch’s crown.
When it unveiled the features for the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4, the technology giant touted several privacy protections, including an audible alert when a user requests a Live Rewind readout, on-device audio processing, and assurances that the underlying audio isn’t actually recorded or stored.
But attorneys and legal experts in California, as well as in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Washington, aren’t convinced that Apple’s privacy protections will sufficiently shield users from legal problems. Those states generally prohibit intercepting certain private or confidential conversations without the consent of everyone involved.
The concern centers in part on whether continuously processing speech, without creating a conventional audio file, could still constitute recording or interception under state law.
Apple has pitched Siri Recap and Live Rewind as tools to jog users’ memories, rather than features designed to create a detailed record of conversations. It has also said the tools don’t attribute comments to specific named individuals and that summaries may omit potentially sensitive material such as financial information, personal identifiers or authentication data.
Despite those guardrails and a declaration that nothing is actually being recorded, the new feature set “raises serious concerns under California law and the laws of other states that require all-party consent,” said Subodh Chandra, founding and managing partner at Chandra Law Firm.
“I don’t think these nuances have been litigated before here,” said Joe Simons, a Boston-based criminal defense attorney, who predicted this scenario would become a “case of first impression” in Massachusetts.
Phil Lauer, a defense attorney in Pennsylvania, said the technology is “very close to being legal, because it’s not an individual who is actually receiving and using this data.” But, he added, “the argument can be made that it’s unlawful” because the device is picking up audio and interpreting it.
“Whether the courts will see it that way, given all the sort of privacy protection things that Apple has used, that’s an interesting question and it’s going to be coming up,” Lauer said.
About half a dozen other states, including Illinois and Florida, also require the agreement of all parties before being recorded.
The concerns come as a growing number of technology companies launch AI-powered devices marketed as a constant presence in users’ daily lives, helping track activities and conversations. Meta’s popular smart glasses, for instance, have sparked backlash over the prospect of covert recording.
There are even AI gadgets purpose-built for audio recording, including devices from Plaud and Pocket. But, crucially, they start listening only when the user presses a button.
Apple also is developing its own camera-equipped wearable devices, including AirPods and smart glasses planned for next year. Ahead of those products, its new so-called audio intelligence features are already drawing scrutiny.
“Surveillance just got more mainstream,” wrote one X user about the Live Rewind feature.
Todd Dailey, a former Apple employee who spent 22 years at the company, wrote in a LinkedIn post that “lawyers will have some long nights ahead.” Siri Recap, he added, “was possible with many devices before, but this just made it much more common and hard to detect.”
Colin Zick, a Boston-based partner and chair of the privacy and data security practice at Foley Hoag, said that “we see a lot of circumstances where the technology is getting ahead of the law.” It would be better, he said, if users had a clear understanding of the law before using the new AI features. “My advice would be, treat this as if it was going to be treated like an interception under the wiretapping statute, and therefore, ask permission.”
Zick drew a comparison to Zoom Communications Inc., which no longer lets users save or download closed captions generated from a meeting. “What does that suggest? That they’re worried about this very issue,” he said.
Under some state laws, it may not matter that audio is processed only fleetingly. What’s more, the idea of intercepting audio doesn’t apply just to people who make a recording for later playback, said Mark Blair, principal at Seattle-based law firm Blair Kim Moeller. “If the recording was made without consent, the wearer of the Apple Watch could be charged with a crime,” he said, even if the content is ultimately deleted and no longer on the watch.
“You have to announce, ‘I have an Apple Watch — this Apple Watch is recording,’” Blair said. “Absent that, it is a criminal violation.”
Apple disputes the characterization that the features record conversations. Its guidance says users should “consider” those around them “where conversations might be private or sensitive.”
The company said in a statement that people have long had different tools at their disposal for taking notes, including phones and wearables, and suggested that its new features are no different. It said that audio is processed on secure hardware that can’t be accessed by the operating system, Apple or anyone else.
Apple added that the 15-second limit for Live Rewind gives people an opportunity to remain near a speaker and use the feature responsibly. It also argued that there is no recording to share, forward or produce to another party because no audio recording is created.
Users can disable the features or limit when they are active to certain hours or locations. Apple also said Live Rewind content will “disappear permanently” from its smartwatches about 30 seconds after the display dims unless it is saved in the Siri app. Siri Recap summaries will be automatically deleted after seven days unless a user saves them.
Apple has made other attempts to draw attention to its AI listening features when they’re in use. A full-screen animation and microphone indicator appear on the watch display when Live Rewind is activated, though no comparable indicator appears continuously while Siri Recap is operating throughout the day.
“People don’t really have a practical means to consent or decline recording. We suggest people should think twice before using this technology, out of respect to the conversational privacy of others,” said Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“While it remains to be seen how state eavesdropping laws will apply to this new technology, it is clear that always-on monitoring of our conversations is an unacceptable burden on our conversational privacy,” he said.
Lung writes for Bloomberg.
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