Considering the amount of Apple devices in the wild, I guess what I talk physically to people will be mostly recorded then, not to mention that Google assistant or smth like that maybe doing the same, what a Brave New World.
this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
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I have an older smart watch and it's starting to get a little tired, I'll be replacing it with an actual watch that only tells the time and date, so sick of all smart things
I got a withings watch as a gift. More or less a standard analogue type watch with health tracking and minor notification support.
Could be worth looking into if you don’t want to go cold turkey.
Just did this myself. I had a collection of regular watches that I went back to and I’m loving it.
I also just bought a DAP for music and already have an XTEink X4 ereader. Slowly moving to get rid of a mart phone all together.
Same here! I've been moving away from all-in-one tech to devices that only do one thing and do it well, usually with wires lol. Wired headphones in a DAP (Hi-Fi Walker) that I also plug into the car, old Sony e-reader that still holds a battery charge for a month, analogue watches, disconnected TVs, pen and paper notebooks, etc. I plug in when I can and avoid bluetooth.
It's interesting, I've since changed my behaviour from buying the flashiest, coolest-looking items to focus on how well they work over how they look. Function over form. Sure, my things are less flashy and uglier, but I see a real charm to them now. It's also driven me to retro-tech and loving using things that get worn looking and used.
I use wall clocks and computers. Haven't worn a watch in forever.
How does this not violate 2-party consent?
Corporations are allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want. There might be a few tiny consequences 10-20 years later that shaves a couple months of profit down, but that is just the cost of business and massive profits for the rest of the time.
Hope this helps!
Just like all these AI companies tracking people, totally illegal and gross violation of privacy but the government could give a rip.
You break a law? Go straight to jail!
Corporation breaks a law? Ohhh well!
There is probably some technicality in that since it doesn’t record audio, but rather just keeps a transcription - that it might not fall afoul of two-party consent?
Even if it is only temporarily stored to RAM for processing, I struggle to see how that doesn't still count as "recording".
It probably wouldn’t meet the strict legal definition, as no copy (physical or digital) is left behind for any period of time - as RAM is volatile and its contents disappear on power cycle.
The Hey Siri does the same thing it's just all on-device.
Or it probably would, they just have no plan to stop it unless they get sued and a judge forces them
Not every country or country subdivision has two party consent. Canada is a one party consent legislation.
The question was not "what countries do not have two party consent?" The question was "how does this not violate two party consent?"
It violates it
I understand that. What about the places that do?
I'm guessing they'll put the responsibility on the user to only activate it when it has the consent of people around it or something...
Won’t exist there
They can disable it based on geolocation, or like others said, put the onus on the user to know best.
Remember when they used to say if you didn't pay for the product it was because you were the product? Now-a-days you get to pay to be the product.
And unironically people enjoy that because it "give" them status
Surveillance capitalism fucking sucks. Can we all go back to the 90's or early 2000's?
The worst thing about this is how ubiquitous Apple watches are. Now everybody who has one is going to have people suspecting them of being unwitting surveillance meat drones.
Man, my work is going to ban apple watches so fast based on this.
Same. Which is hilarious because we're an Apple organization mostly.
How many times has Strava leaked secret military base coordinates?
But add an always-listening AI assistant into the mix who's taking notes on your day-to-day, including your conversations with others who may not know they're being surveilled, and suddenly Apple's latest handy feature starts to look a lot creepier. Apple's other big new Audio Intelligence feature for watches is Live Rewind, which can produce a transcript of the last 15 seconds of audio on your watch face — whether a wake word was said, or not.
Thanks Siri Recaps!
I won’t say it’s not* a privacy nightmare but doesn’t Apple devices process this whole thing on-device? I don’t find it fair to compare this with Meta anything (and only that).
Yes and no company has ever broken its promise or gotten hacked. Nothing stays safe forever. As soon as some AI company makes a future deal for that data your privacy does not matter. Apples been caught before violating privacy laws.
You can't trust any corporation to keep your data safe and local. They lie about not sending it elsewhere, and even when they don't, all it takes is one security breech, which every company has all the damn time.
Ok, but prior to this, the listening thing was at least a separate device. Now it can be a watch or sun glasses or your tv...
Plus is doesn’t store the audio nor an infinite log. It just continuously stores the last 15 seconds to my understanding. Meaning, what was said and transcribed 30 seconds ago is no longer accessible.
The Live Audio is only 15 seconds before it is overwritten. The Transcribe is 7 days before it is overwritten.
I don’t give a fuck. Your stupid dweeb watch is just another antisocial surveillance device.
What the fuck is that response? I don’t own an Apple Watch or anything. I’m just trying to put forth actual facts for the discussion.
It isn't enough to be privacy conscious. Now the apyijg follows you anywhere you have contact with other people