Apple’s return to growth has come at a price… Users privacy!
The big techs are in the same boat when it comes to protecting users data
Big techs have been the driving force behind the longest-running bullish market in U.S history. Most of them have tried to reinvent themselves by diversifying their business models. Amazon, the e-commerce giant is now the biggest Cloud provider, Biggest revenue generation for Microsoft is from its Azure Cloud business, Facebook is looking towards digital payments and Apple has turned its attention from Products to Services.
The Cupertino tech giant recently reported the second-quarter earnings. The much-anticipated numbers surprised to the upside after two successive quarters of declining revenues. Apple not only returned to growth, beating Wall Street expectations, but it also raised guidance for the current quarter as well.
Although the current revenue inched up barely to $11.46 billion up from $11.45 billion last quarter — still posted a healthy gain from $10.17 billion same period last year. The services have become the second biggest revenue-generating segment for the company with 21%, second only to iPhone sales at 48%.
Total revenue grew modestly to $53.01 billion owing to strong services & wearables revenue. Profit, however, dropped 12% to $10.04 billion owing mainly to a sharp increase in R&D spending. Seems like Apple has realized it needs to find the next big thing to keep the growth momentum intact. As the iPhone sales number have continued to drop, Apple has turned its attention to the Services segment.
Talking about Services, Apple has been in the good books with the users as far as the data privacy is concerned. It’s contemporaries — Facebook, Google, Amazon have all been embroiled in some kind of controversies regarding data breaches or unlawful use of the customers’ data. Well, things might be turning sour for Apple as well.
A whistleblower on condition of anonymity recently revealed that a small portion of Siri recordings is passed on to Apple contractors working around the World, who listen to these voice messages. Apple does not explicitly state any such undertaking in its privacy policy. While Apple says this is just used to improve Siri’s functions to better understand what you say, the whistleblower had an opposing opinion.
“A small portion of Siri requests are analysed to improve Siri and dictation. User requests are not associated with the user’s Apple ID. Siri responses are analysed in secure facilities and all reviewers are under the obligation to adhere to Apple’s strict confidentiality requirements.” — Apple talking to Guardian
“There have been countless instances of recordings featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on. These recordings are accompanied by user data showing location, contact details, and app data.” — Whistleblower
Apparently, Siri is prone to accident activation on Apple devices — most notably the Apple Watch & the company’s HomePod smart speaker. Keep in mind Amazon’s Alexa & Google’s Assistant have both been blamed for similar human oversight of their recordings. Apple values its reputation for protecting users privacy when comparing itself with its direct competitors in this space — Google & Amazon.
Even if only 1% of these small activations are graded as claimed by Apple, the personal details in them are chilling for any user. Ironically, Apple bought a billboard (picture at the top) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in Jan. 2019 stating — “what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” For a long term user like me who is deeply entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, the question arises then — Does it really?