Admission by Facebook (Google and Apple as well) that your audio is recorded by them

[hailourtruegod]

My notes: the only reason they "stopped" this feature (and only 2 weeks ago) is because they got caught. They wouldn't stopped if no one had said anything. Think about it; how does their products know when you say the words "ok Google" or "Siri" that it should start listening. The fact is it's always listening. Not only that but it has been proven as shown below that audio is saved by these big tech companies.


Then you have the slimy alien Zucc twist words around when asked if he is constantly listening to their users. Instead of yes or no he says something that has nothing to do with the question. A good example I heard is if you steal a cookie from the cookie jar and I asked you specifically if you stole a cookie from the cookie jar and your answer is " you're asking me if I stole a cookie from the cookie jar to hide it under my pillow and the answer is no." The question is changed and you answer that instead of my question. The question to Zuckerberg wasn't if he's doing it to give information to advertisers but he threw that in there so he didn't answer the initial question. The blame also goes to the senator for not catching something so blatant.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/08/14/did-facebook-just-give-13-billion-users-a-reason-to-delete-their-account/#79f80bb41662

Facebook Just Gave 1.3 Billion Messenger Users A Reason To Delete Their Accounts


Facebook has just become the latest big tech firm to confirm that external contractors are listening to audio of users’ private conversations. According to a Bloomberg report, Facebook has hired the contractors to listen in to users taking advantage of the audio to text functionality in its Messenger service.

The affected users had opted into having their Messenger chats transcribed, the firm said. However, Facebook Messenger users might not have known this was going to be done by humans–who were tasked with transcribing conversations to assess the accuracy of the tool.

Facebook policies are not explicit, simply stating: “We collect the content, communications and other information you provide when you use our products, including when you sign up for an account, create or share content and message or communicate with others.”

Thankfully, Facebook said it had paused the practice over a week ago, after finding out Google and Apple had stopped their use of human reviewers. 

A Facebook spokesperson says: “Much like Apple and Google, we paused human review of audio more than a week ago.”  

Facebook is listening: Why it matters 

As of 2018 there were 1.3 billion users of Facebook Messenger, and it will add to concerns about the upcoming merging of this app with WhatsApp. It’s difficult to gauge how many people actually used the transcription functionality and what proportion of these were being listened to. But the audio snippets were apparently anonymized to mask people’s identities.

Facebook has “time and time again shown little regard for users' privacy,” says security researcher Sean Wright. “While I understand there could be a legitimate need to have a human review the recordings from time to time, this should be made absolutely explicit to the user.”

It’s therefore a major concern that seemingly private Facebook Messenger conversations were listened to by a human being. It also adds fuel to the fire for the tin foil hat wearing Facebook users out there. There’s long been a (unproven) conspiracy that Facebook is somehow listening to people’s conversations via their phone mic, and serving them relevant advertising as a result. 

It also sees Facebook become the fourth company to confirm that human contractors are listening to people’s private conversations. In July, it emerged that Apple contractors were listening to Siri conversations.

Earlier in July, it was revealed that Google was doing the same with its Home Assistant interactions. Back in April, it emerged that the Amazon assistant Alexa was recording sometimes private conversations. 

This month, Vice’s Motherboard revealed that some Skype calls were also being listened to by Microsoft contractors.  

Facebook eavesdropping: What to do 

So, what should you do? Facebook users should really know by now that using Messenger for private conversations isn’t very secure. “Facebook already admits to scanning Messenger content such as text, images and links for many reasons so transcribing audio or video content is really just an add on to what they are already doing,” points out Jake Moore, cybersecurity specialist at ESET. 

“Micro targeted advertising is their multimillion-dollar business so naturally there may be data within this audio which will add to people’s profile,” says Moore. “However, where this becomes a privacy matter or even grey area is, people wrongly tend to assume that this content is private from all eyes and ears.”

Personally, I don’t use Facebook Messenger at all: Services such as Signal are so much more secure for your daily communication. But is it time to delete Facebook entirely? Perhaps: After numerous hacks and privacy breaches, the Silicon Valley giant has done nothing to show it’s taking good care of your data. 

If deleting your account entirely is too much, you could start with the app. Apple has already made a change that stops apps such as Facebook from collecting data in the background as it moves to try and improve user privacy. 

If you care about your privacy, ethical hacker John Opdenakker recommends uninstalling the app. “If you still want to use Facebook and Messenger on your phone, at least check the app permissions and switch off access to the microphone if it’s enabled.”

You carry your phone around everywhere and that gives apps such as Facebook access to a lot of data. If you are concerned about that, why not just use it on your desktop instead?

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/15/senator-challenges-zuckerberg-testimony-after-facebook-audio-report.html?&qsearchterm=zuckerberg

TECHSenator challenges Zuckerberg testimony as ‘at best, incomplete’ after report of Facebook’s audio transcription



KEY POINTS

Sen. Gary Peters asked Facebook’s CEO to respond to questions about the company’s audio collection practices following a report that revealed Facebook used outside contractors to transcribe user audio.The report from Bloomberg said Facebook did not disclose to users that a third-party would be reviewing their audio.Peters claimed in the letter that if true, the report proves Zuckerberg’s 2018 congressional testimony was “at best, incomplete.”




A lawmaker is calling into question FacebookCEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony in front of Congress after a new report revealed the company used outside contractors to transcribe audio from its services without users’ explicit consent.

Following Tuesday’s report from Bloomberg, Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan sent a letter to Zuckerberg asking for further clarity on the program and warning that if the report is true, his answers during the April 2018 testimony seem to be “at best, incomplete.”

“At that hearing, I asked you specifically if Facebook uses audio obtained from mobile devices to enrich personal information about its users. Your emphatic answer was no,” Peters wrote in the letter dated Aug. 15. “Your exact words to me were: ‘You’re talking about this conspiracy theory that gets passed around that we listen to what’s going on on your microphone and use that for ads. We don’t do that.’”

Senator Gary Peters

✔@SenGaryPeters

 · Aug 14, 2019

When I told Mark Zuckerberg last year that people were concerned @Facebook listens to & uses private audio conversations, he dismissed that notion as ‘a conspiracy theory.’


During the testimony, Zuckerberg appeared to be referencing a long-standing theory that Facebook records audio to target users with ads. Facebook said that the audio transcriptions referenced in the Bloomberg story were anonymized and used to check that its artificial intelligence accurately understood the messages.

In response to a request for comment on Peters’ letter, a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC: “The meme that Facebook is eavesdropping on your phone in the background is absolutely false. Mark’s statements on this were true when he said them, and they remain true today. It has always been the case that Facebook only accesses your microphone if you have given our app permission and if you are actively using a specific feature that requires audio. It has also always been true that Facebook does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed.”

But Facebook had not told users that their audio could be reviewed by third parties, according to Bloomberg. Facebook told Congress in written responses to questions that it “only accesses users’ microphone if the user has given our app permission and if they are actively using a specific feature that requires audio (like voice messaging features),” Peters noted.

Facebook confirmed the audio transcription to CNBC following the initial report on Tuesday, but said it recently discontinued the program.

“Much like Apple and Google, we paused human review of audio more than a week ago,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

Peters asked Zuckerberg to respond to a series of questions by Aug. 28 to clarify for what purposes Facebook uses the audio recordings and whether users are prompted to agree to the transcription. The Irish Data Protection Commission confirmed to CNBC that it is looking into Facebook’s audio collection processes as well.

The report follows a $5 billion settlementwith the Federal Trade Commission over the company’s privacy policies. The settlement followed an investigation into Facebook’s privacy policies, including a probe into whether Facebook violated an agreement obtaining explicit consent from users when sharing data with third-party developers.

 

[FancyMancy]

There was a youtube video which I'm not sure if it was shared here or I came across it myself, but a man was talking about this very thing, and during the recording of the video he mentioned a product to us, the audience. He went onto another tab in his browser and low and behold there were adverts for the very product he mentioned.