This is the script for my national network radio report yesterday on Apple's new watch with audio capture features that may be illegal to use in many locations. As always there may have been minor wording variations from this script as I presented this report live on air.
- - -
So yes, #Apple used to have a reputation of being very privacy conscious but now probably because of their deep embrace of #AI it appears they're moving significantly in the opposite direction into the creepy zone.
They just announced their new Series 12 watch and it has a couple of features that some observers are saying might actually be illegal to use in some areas. In fact, those features are apparently currently disabled in the EU and if used in some U.S. states might violate state laws that relate -- of all things -- to wiretapping. Yes, now we have to worry about wiretapping watches. Oh my.
So these features are called Live Rewind and Siri Recap, and these both involve a microphone in the watch that if these features are enabled listens and processes the sounds around you. Live Rewind lets you review the last 15 seconds of audio the watch heard as text output, and Siri Recap lets you see an AI-generated report based on what the watch heard throughout the day. You can already see where this is going.
The problem is that in many parts of the world -- like the EU -- and in a number of U.S. states, there are laws that prohibit collecting this kind of audio information in areas where you would have a reasonable expectation of privacy, unless everyone involved -- like the person or persons you're talking with at any given moment -- are notified and agree to this process. The live rewind feature when triggered to output by the user reportedly plays a little chime and has a visual notification, but of course anyone else around the watch owner might not even hear or see that or have any idea what it meant.
The Siri Recap feature apparently doesn't give any visible or audio indication at all that it's sitting there sucking in everything the watch can hear and feeding it up to Apple's AI cloud. Apple has gone to great lengths to explain that it isn't really recording audio per se, rather it's processing the audio on the watch and then sending the resulting textual content information to the AI for it to generate its reports.
The potential problem for Apple though is that in states (for example California) that have so called 2-party consent (actually all-party consent) laws relating to this area, it's not just recording of audio that's covered, eavesdropping can be explicitly covered as well. In fact, traditionally, before the wide availability of recording devices, wiretaps were usually conducted by law enforcement listening in real time and manually transcribing what they heard!
It's easy to see how both Live Rewind and especially Siri Recap could be viewed as running afoul of related laws in various U.S. states and the EU and elsewhere. The key point is that Apple's insistence that they're not technically using the watch to make audio recordings is beside the point. They're still listening to audio and using that audio to create data that, again for example in the case of Siri Recap, is feeding into an AI data center somewhere, and it will do this irrespective of whether all the persons involved in conversations gave their permission for this or even had any idea at all that it was happening.
Some states and some countries are indeed VERY serious about regulating the use of these kinds of audio-based devices and applications, so despite Apple's seeming confidence about this, it might be wise for them, as the saying goes, to ... "watch" their step.
- - -
L
Lauren Weinstein
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2026-09-15 14:36:28 UTC
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"content": "This is the script for my national network radio report yesterday on Apple's new watch with audio capture features that may be illegal to use in many locations. As always there may have been minor wording variations from this script as I presented this report live on air.\n\n - - -\n\nSo yes, #Apple used to have a reputation of being very privacy conscious but now probably because of their deep embrace of #AI it appears they're moving significantly in the opposite direction into the creepy zone.\n\nThey just announced their new Series 12 watch and it has a couple of features that some observers are saying might actually be illegal to use in some areas. In fact, those features are apparently currently disabled in the EU and if used in some U.S. states might violate state laws that relate -- of all things -- to wiretapping. Yes, now we have to worry about wiretapping watches. Oh my.\n\nSo these features are called Live Rewind and Siri Recap, and these both involve a microphone in the watch that if these features are enabled listens and processes the sounds around you. Live Rewind lets you review the last 15 seconds of audio the watch heard as text output, and Siri Recap lets you see an AI-generated report based on what the watch heard throughout the day. You can already see where this is going.\n\nThe problem is that in many parts of the world -- like the EU -- and in a number of U.S. states, there are laws that prohibit collecting this kind of audio information in areas where you would have a reasonable expectation of privacy, unless everyone involved -- like the person or persons you're talking with at any given moment -- are notified and agree to this process. The live rewind feature when triggered to output by the user reportedly plays a little chime and has a visual notification, but of course anyone else around the watch owner might not even hear or see that or have any idea what it meant.\n\nThe Siri Recap feature apparently doesn't give any visible or audio indication at all that it's sitting there sucking in everything the watch can hear and feeding it up to Apple's AI cloud. Apple has gone to great lengths to explain that it isn't really recording audio per se, rather it's processing the audio on the watch and then sending the resulting textual content information to the AI for it to generate its reports.\n\nThe potential problem for Apple though is that in states (for example California) that have so called 2-party consent (actually all-party consent) laws relating to this area, it's not just recording of audio that's covered, eavesdropping can be explicitly covered as well. In fact, traditionally, before the wide availability of recording devices, wiretaps were usually conducted by law enforcement listening in real time and manually transcribing what they heard!\n\nIt's easy to see how both Live Rewind and especially Siri Recap could be viewed as running afoul of related laws in various U.S. states and the EU and elsewhere. The key point is that Apple's insistence that they're not technically using the watch to make audio recordings is beside the point. They're still listening to audio and using that audio to create data that, again for example in the case of Siri Recap, is feeding into an AI data center somewhere, and it will do this irrespective of whether all the persons involved in conversations gave their permission for this or even had any idea at all that it was happening.\n\nSome states and some countries are indeed VERY serious about regulating the use of these kinds of audio-based devices and applications, so despite Apple's seeming confidence about this, it might be wise for them, as the saying goes, to ... \"watch\" their step.\n\n - - -\n\nL",
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