Key points
- Apple and Amazon bring conversation summaries to wearables
- Why Apple and Amazon not storing audio may not resolve consent concerns
- New Hampshire's wiretap law could reach Apple Watch owners
Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) are introducing watches and other wearable devices with features that turn conversations into written summaries. Both say those features do not store audio. Lawyers say that may not settle the question of consent.
Some state wiretap laws cover listening to or acquiring a conversation's contents, even without saving an audio recording, lawyers told CNBC. Users could therefore face legal questions over conversations their devices summarize.
What the new devices do
Amazon announced two Bee devices on Oct. 15. Bee Frontier costs $74.99 and is available now. It can be worn on the wrist or clipped to clothing. Bee Eclipse, a credit-card-sized device that attaches magnetically to a phone, is coming soon at a starting price of $99.99. Both produce conversation summaries and to-do lists. A Bee Pro subscription costs $11.99 a month.
Apple is adding two opt-in features to the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4. Siri Recap "ambiently takes notes on your conversations throughout your day," according to Apple's support page. Live Rewind displays a text snippet of the previous 15 seconds of speech. Both are due in beta later this year, in English only.
Other companies already sell devices that capture conversations. Meta (META) offers smart glasses that record video and voice notes, Plaud and Pocket sell card-sized note-taking devices, and Friend makes an AI necklace.
What Apple and Amazon say about the audio
"Audio is not recorded or stored," Apple's page says. To build a summary, Siri Recap sends an encrypted, condensed version of the conversation transcript from the iPhone to Apple's Private Cloud Compute. Unsaved summaries delete themselves after seven days. When Live Rewind is activated, the watch plays a chime, even on silent, and shows a microphone indicator.
The page also asks users to "consider those around you where conversations might be private or sensitive." It gives no guidance on consent laws.
Amazon says "no audio is ever stored" on Bee devices. Conversations are processed in an isolated environment "where no one, including Amazon, can access your data," the company says. Bee Frontier shows a light when its microphone is on. Bee Eclipse users are "prompted to gain permission from call participants each time a recording is started." Amazon's announcement doesn't describe a similar prompt for Frontier.
Why "no recording" may not settle the legal question
Many state wiretap laws are written around whether a private conversation was intercepted or its contents acquired, not whether an audio file was made. Whether a device that listens and keeps only a summary has intercepted anything is a largely untested question.
Massachusetts' law defines an intercepting device as anything "capable of transmitting, receiving, amplifying, or recording" a conversation. The "contents" of a conversation include its "substance, purport, or meaning." The law applies to secret recording or listening done without permission from everyone in the conversation, and it carries a prison term of up to five years.
Colin Zick, a privacy and data security attorney at Foley Hoag, said a device that continuously takes in speech and writes a summary could potentially fall within that language, even if it never keeps an audio file. In some states, the bigger legal risk may fall on the person wearing the device rather than the company that made it. "A non-wearer did not buy the watch, agree to Apple's terms, or choose to have their conversation summarized in the app," Zick said.
New Hampshire's law covers "the aural or other acquisition of, or the recording of" a conversation's contents. Daniel Pi, an associate professor at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, said he believes the Apple Watch's new audio features would qualify as an interception there. Under the state's law, a person who intercepts a conversation they are part of without everyone's consent commits a misdemeanor.
Pi said the practical risk of prosecution is far lower. He said he would be surprised to see prosecutors pursue a bare violation where no one was harmed.
Federal law is looser. The federal Wiretap Act generally allows a person to record a conversation they are part of, or one where a participant has agreed.
The people who never opted in
"I think the bystander problem is really the concern I have, that you can be surveilled without owning the technology," said Michael Stokes, a former CIA officer and senior vice president of emerging technologies at Veilant. He said AI has cut the cost of making sense of what microphones and cameras pick up.
"If I'm giving permission for myself to be recorded, or for everything I look at to be recorded, that doesn't mean everybody else around you has given that consent," said Karen Panetta, dean of graduate education at Tufts University's School of Engineering.
One startup is building a countermeasure. Deveillance says its Spectre I, a puck-shaped gadget, scans for nearby devices and sends out signals that scramble a person's speech before microphones can process it.
"We no longer have these pockets of small privacy that we thought we did in the past," Stokes said.
