Siri, Alexa, Cortana and Google are all ears

Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal,” marks one of the famous lines from US President Nixon’s interviews, where Nixon implicated himself in the Watergate scandal. At the time it was well-known that the government was tapping phones of its opponents, Nixon’s confession gave it the much-needed propriety.

What is different about today’s scenario is that tech companies are well within their confines to listen to your conversations. It’s just that they are being obscure about the way they do it. The latest to join this is Cupertino giant Apple. A whistleblower in a Guardian report revealed that Apple was handing recordings of Siri conversations to contractors to listen and grade them. While the company has apologised, it is not the only one to do so. Facebook and Microsoft, earlier this month, after a similar expose, had revealed that they too were listening conversations. Whereas Google issued an apology last month after it was found doing the same. Amazon had also made a similar announcement in April this year.