Is Apple Truly as Pro-Privacy as they Suggest? Evidence of Listening in and a Recent Major Facetime Bug Put Apple’s Public Stance in Question

Apple faced public scrutiny when viral videos surfaced showing a glaring bug with Apple’s FaceTime feature that allowed the caller to hear conversations and even see video from the person being called before that person accepted or rejected the call. The bug appears to only appear during group chats (chats with more than 2 people), but this hasn’t stopped people from disabling FaceTime entirely. In response to the bug, Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at Electric Frontier Foundation, a leading international non-profit dedicated to digital privacy rights, brazenly wrote “Throw your iPhone into the sea.”

…this FaceTime bug follows the recent trend of not-so-privacy-conscious news stories related to Apple products.

Given that Apple frequently toutsitself as being pro-privacy, this accident has left consumerswondering whether that pro-privacy stance is truly genuine.These concerns were exacerbated by the fact that media outlets recently beganreporting that Grant Thompson, a 14-year-oldout of Tucson, Arizona had noticed the bug more than a week beforethe issue became public. Thompson told his mother, a licensed attorney, aboutthe issue and she reportedly“tried everything she could think of to get Apple’s attention,” includingemailing, calling, and tweetingat Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, and even faxing a letter on her law firm’s letterhead. 

Importantly, this FaceTime bug follows the recenttrend of not-so-privacy-conscious news stories related to Apple products. Alongwith a 2014 leakof celebrities’ private iCloud photos, some consumershad also recently been growing increasingly paranoid about receivingadvertisements for products related to something they had been talking about outloud when the phone was in the room, even when the phone was not in use at thetime. This sparked huge concern that Apple was listening in to consumers andselling their information to third-party advertisers.

Sandy Parakilas, a former operations manager forFacebook, has saidthat he thinks large companies listening in to non-phone conversations is “veryvery unlikely” because collecting data constantly from iPhones would be tooexpensive. However, another cybersecurity expert explainedthat because the iPhone’s microphone, loaded with AI assistants, necessarilyhas to be able to be triggered by vocal commands like “Hey Siri,” the iPhone isconstantly listening for those designated “trigger words.” This mechanism couldjust as easily allow Apple to listen in for trigger words that relate toproducts that certain advertisers request. Did the consumer mention the word“cold” or “heater”? Then perhaps that person will receive an ad from a heatingrepair company that Apple has contracted with. Similarly, a person mentioning“Disney World,” “Miami,” or the word “vacation,” a certain number of timescould just as easily trigger an ad from a travel agency or airline. Although itis difficultto discover exactly what the trigger words are because of variousencryptions, the possibilities with this technology are endless. The ads couldbe set to be displayed only if specific trigger words are said a certain amountof times within a certain period of days, or perhaps only if they are said incombination with other trigger words. Another expert explained that thislistening in might happen but that “companies know so much about you already,they probably don’t need to eavesdrop.”

Ina meeting with Congressmen, Apple specifically deniedusing these trigger words to listen in to its customers, but did admit,“Apple does not and cannot monitor what [third-party app] developers do withthe customer data they have collected, or prevent the onward transfer of thatdata, nor do we have the ability to ensure a developer’s compliance with theirown privacy policies or local law.”

Apple has said that they will fix the FaceTime bug by the end of the week, but this has not stopped lawsuits and government investigations from ensuing. An opportunistic attorney from Houston, Larry Williams II, filed suit for negligence, product liability, misrepresentation, and breach of warranty against Apple, claiming that the FaceTime bug allowed an unknown person to eavesdrop on his private conversation with a client. Williams is seeking compensatory and punitive damages against Apple and claims that Apple failed to notify users of the risks of using FaceTime and responded slowly to the risk, a sentiment expressed by other commenters as well. Furthermore, Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, announced that her office would be opening an investigation into the FaceTime bug citing that the “FaceTime breach is a serious threat to the security and privacy of the millions of New Yorkers who have put their trust in Apple and its products over the years.” It is unclear how lawsuits against Apple or New York’s investigation will turn out; however, what can definitely be said is that trust in Apple has slowly been eroding as privacy concerns continue to fill the news. Likely, the last thing Apple wants is to have its reputation anywhere near Facebook who has been the subject of numerous privacy hearings and investigations.

Sebastian Brana, 28 January 2019