jfadams wrote:
Lawrence:
I understand completely why Siri would need access to contact data IF I were to ask it to call, text or email someone. But my question was why the simple Dictation feature was designed to likewise require me to give Apple access to my sensitive contact data?
As already noted elsewhere, I could have sworn that the Dictation function worked on my 4S without activating Siri. Maybe I clicked past the contact data access disclosure or it was less noticeable or non-existent.
There is no such thing as "simple" dictation. Speech to text is very hard (I know; I worked on such systems 25 years ago, and I still follow the technology). As an example, if you have ever used Dragon Dictate on a PC, when you first get it you must "train" it by reading to it for an hour or more. The iPhone doesn't require that; instead it uses a lot of clues that it gets from data on your phone (when you include a name or address in what you dictate instead of searching a database of millions of names that it might be it starts by searching your contacts), dictionaries, and a database of millions of users saying words. For words in the dictionary it can just use a dictionary, but most names are not in a dictionary. Everything you say goes into that database, and is used to improve speech recognition in the future for you and everyone else. So I would think you would be more concerned that the contents of whatever you were dictating are preserved forever in a massive database.
Dictation on iPhones has never been processed on the phone. Siri is just a user interface to a speech recognition database; that same Internet-hosted database has always been used for dictation on iPhones. Before Apple offered dictation on the iPhone Nuance offered it, using the same database. Android phones also, except they use Google's speech recognition database instead of Nuance's. Regardless, any speech recognition on any phone has always used Internet services. (One exception; the very early dial-by-voice was done entirely on the phone - it didn't work very well, and it also required access to your contacts).
Apple has always disclosed that Siri (and dictation) saved your contacts (and calendar entries). However, until iOS 8 it was buried in the user agreement that you accepted whenever you updated your phone, probably without reading it. The only difference now is that Apple is being more open and explicit where user data are used. They also make clear that Apple only uses your personal information to provide services to you; they don't look at it or share it with anyone. If you don't believe them then you should not be using an iPhone, as there are so many other potential ways your content may be compromised if Apple chose to be unscrupulous.
Further, you shouldn't be using any smart phone. Yesterday AT&T announced that they were going to STOP tagging all of the data packets from your phone with a unique identifier so your communications could be tracked and shared with anyone who paid them for that information (mostly for targeted advertising). It probably never occurred to you that they were doing this. Ironically, Verizon responded by saying they were NOT going to stop this practice.
It was also revealed this week that several large ISPs (comcast, optimum, etc) turn off encryption when processing the email that you think is using Transport Layer Security (TLS) when originating over their network.
There are many ways your data are being siphoned without your knowledge that you are unaware of; why are you so concerned that Apple has been open about one practice that does not compromise your personal information?
