Ask legislators to block applewatch's always-listening feature
I'm writing my legislators about this. Below is my email about this, which I've sent to my state reps. I sent a similar letter to my rep in U.S. Congress, and I wrote a similar Letter To The Editor to be (hopefully) published in my local paper. I've also sent a similar message to my state's attorney general.
Apple announced a feature for their upcoming smart watch which will listen to everything 24/7 and transcribe notes for the wearer. In [my state], we have a two-party consent rule for recording, and this always-on feature would likely violate that law in many contexts, and it would violate basic privacy rights we have, to not be recorded without our consent. Apple is arguing that the "listening" is not technically recording because they are just "processing" the audio data then deleting the data. This is, perhaps, debateable. But the end result is to produce transcriptions and summaries of conversations, which is very near recording without consent.
Please act quickly to protect our privacy rights in [my sate], before a feature like this becomes ubiquitous. This kind of feature should be outright banned in [my state]. There should be clear legislation to this effect, and the question of "is this an illegal recording" should not be left to the courts. By the time it hits the courts, our privacy rights will have already been violated, and many thousands of people will already be wearing these watches and "recording" people without consent. Our legislature should be proactive in protecting us from new technology that violates our rights, and it should not be up to the courts to do the legislature's job of governing.
Section added for my Attorney General:
The Attorney General should promptly publish an opinion on this matter with their legal interpretation, identifying this as a form of recording protected by our existing laws regarding audio recording. Our AG should also work with the legislature to craft policy that will clearly ban this practice of always-listening and transcribing. Regardless of the AG's official opinion with regard to our existing laws, new legislation should be passed that does not leave any room for interpretation by the courts.