Yesterday, I was talking on the phone about screwdrivers.
Sure enough, my phone started serving me tool ads on social media. Creepy right? I’m sure you’ve had a similar experience.
“I know it’s listening!”
Well, it is, but not in the way you might think or fear.
Your phone IS listening to everything you say. But it’s (supposedly) listening only for keywords like “Hey, Siri,” “Alexa,”and “Hey, Google.”
Here’s how it works on an iPhone.
The phone is listening for “Hey, Siri.” That’s the audible equivalent of the “wake” button, and it performs the same operation. This is done locally on the phone, and no audio or transcription is sent to Apple’s servers unless it detects the wake word.
Once Siri is activated, the phone splits the processing of the following audio between the phone and the cloud. Therefore, this audio may be sent to Apple’s servers. It depends on what you are asking it to do. Some operations (like “set a timer”or “change the volume”) happen only on the phone, and nothing goes to the cloud. Other operations (like “What time do the Phillies play?”) do require the cloud. Apple claims that only the necessary post-wake word audio is temporarily stored for processing and is anonymized. So even if your words go to the cloud, they’re not associated with you, the person (via your AppleID), unless you’ve opted into sharing recordings for analysis.
Apple explicitly states that they do NOT use Siri data to serve targeted ads.
So, what is happening because it sure feels creepy?
The creepiness results from sophisticated data tracking and algorithms based on your online activity, the activity of people to whom you’re connected, and shared household or device profiles. The apps on your phone DO know to whom you are connected. Plus, the algorithms are good at what they do.
Take my screwdriver story. What happened?
It’s hard to know for sure, but a plausible answer is that either I, the person I spoke with, or some connection of either of us had recently been looking at tools. Since I’m in the target demographic and we’re getting close to the holiday season, the tool vendors are targeting me as an audience.
Although coincidental, it’s also not that surprising, given the time of year we’re in and that if we were just talking about tools, there’s a good chance we were looking at tools.
It definitely feels creepy, but as long as the companies are doing what they say, it is just a coincidence.
Just because it feels a certain way, doesn’t mean it is.
