Apple's 'differential privacy' policy invoked for opt-in iCloud data analysis in iOS 10.3
Apple's upcoming iOS 10.3 update will include an opt-in for collecting data from iCloud accounts, which will in turn be used to improve "intelligent features and services such as Siri," according to people testing the current beta.
Analysis of the data is only being done after it's subjected to privacy preservation techniques including differential privacy, said MacStories's Federico Viticci. The latter inserts "noise" into mass data collection, making it possible to look at broad trends without risking the exposure of individual people. While other companies do try to anonymize data, it's theoretically possible to join different points to determine who someone is.
Apple first announced plans to begin opt-in data collection through iOS 10 in June, at the time saying it would be limited to deep links, lookup hints in Notes, and dictionary and emoji additions.
Siri, however, has come under fire as being a weak AI assistant next to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, particularly because Apple's privacy policies can hamper machine learning and hence Siri's ability to personalize content or understand context. Data obtained from iOS 10.3 could help Apple refine Siri, if just in terms of general behavior.
Apple is rumored to be making Siri improvements a focus of 2017 iPhones, presumably delivered through iOS 11. This week Apple became a founding member of the Partnership on AI, with Siri co-creator Tom Gruber named to the board of trustees.
The first beta of iOS 10.3 was released earlier this week. It may take several iterations before the finished code is released.
Analysis of the data is only being done after it's subjected to privacy preservation techniques including differential privacy, said MacStories's Federico Viticci. The latter inserts "noise" into mass data collection, making it possible to look at broad trends without risking the exposure of individual people. While other companies do try to anonymize data, it's theoretically possible to join different points to determine who someone is.
Apple first announced plans to begin opt-in data collection through iOS 10 in June, at the time saying it would be limited to deep links, lookup hints in Notes, and dictionary and emoji additions.
Siri, however, has come under fire as being a weak AI assistant next to Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, particularly because Apple's privacy policies can hamper machine learning and hence Siri's ability to personalize content or understand context. Data obtained from iOS 10.3 could help Apple refine Siri, if just in terms of general behavior.
Apple is rumored to be making Siri improvements a focus of 2017 iPhones, presumably delivered through iOS 11. This week Apple became a founding member of the Partnership on AI, with Siri co-creator Tom Gruber named to the board of trustees.
The first beta of iOS 10.3 was released earlier this week. It may take several iterations before the finished code is released.
Comments
Apple does have stronger user-facing privacy protections compared to Google, no question. Still neither one is bad when viewed alongside other data aggregators, and both companies are aggressively protective of any user data they've been entrusted with.
I'm pleased to see Apple pushing ML privacy. There's a good intro to the topic over on InfoQ that looks at what Apple and Google are doing.
https://www.infoq.com/articles/differential-privacy-intro
An opt-out option is fine and as long as Apple isn't selling data and keeping it safe or anonymizing it, it's fine.
Google uses it in RAPPOR. Which makes sense. If I live in a certain city and start typing a search term in Google, then Google offers suggestions applicable to my city. But this is a fraction of Googles data collection.
I haven't been able to find anything about Google using differential privacy anywhere else. And I don't think their primary business activity (targeted advertising) would even be compatible with differential privacy. The whole point of targeted advertising is that Google knows who you are so it can match ads specifically to you. Differential privacy is the opposite of this.
People have been doing studies on differential privacy and targeted advertising, and it appears possible, but not at a level of granularity Google would like. So I doubt we'll see them using it anywhere else.
There's a reason Google changed their company motto from "Do no Evil."
If I remember correctly last year when Allo was released last September while others were negative about Google's data collection intentions you were an advocate of Allo's encryption right up to the point you were informed Google had chosen to remove end-to-end encryption and keep all data forever. Admittedly you did disagree with the removal.
On another note, differential privacy was not championed until Apple raised the flag. Google, Microsoft and others studied differential privacy and all decided not to use it. Now that Apple appears to be making progress with keeping data private by using differential privacy others may consider it, but with Amazon, Facebook, Google and others collecting as much data as possible online and offline for profiling, I sincerely doubt they will be strong advocates of the use of differential privacy.
Well they should probably start with actually figuring out how old I am (I'm not in my 40's as they think) and that I really don't like Hip Hop music, and my interests do not include either skiing or mountain climbing. Oh, and I've never been to Michigan. Have no idea why they think I did. But I would like to see where Google is logging everything I post here. Some of the old conversations can be hard to go back to. Where did you find that information? As for the rest even Apple does most of that don't they (compare the two privacy policies), as well as cooperates with legal law enforcement or governments requests to turn over your "Apple dossier"
By the way you should look at your Google profile information once in awhile, purge whatever you don't want them to use, or better yet just opt out of the whole thing. Google makes it relatively easy to review, modify, remove or opt out entirely from any data sharing or collection. (As long as you're so worried about companies having personal information where is the Apple page for me to review what Apple has collected about me and modify or remove as need be? Yes I have an Apple ID)
Also as others noted Google has been experimenting with differential privacy for awhile (See RAPPOR), well before Apple began their own limited use of it. But kudos to Apple for bringing the privacy feature to the public's attention. Google doesn't do PR very well, kinda surprising for a company who makes most of its living from promotion of other companies.
Photos in Sierra auto tags all photos - no opt out, or in, and as I recall even had an arguably misleading statement on the photos web page suggesting the possibility, rather than the compulsory data mining... One can call it various shades of private, but I'm guessing all one needs is an executive order and fair game on...
AI may be the next big push to harvest what remains of work and IP, and concentrate the wealth to the half percent - will we be dealing with more than fake news or alternative facts very soon?
Oh, and illegally using your customers data when they specifically asked you not to, is another thing again.
I'll do you a favor and make sure you are aware of this: You and many others believe that "Do Not Track" carries some legal weight and turning it on in Safari or any other browser means you can not be legally tracked. It does not mean that at all and was not the reason for the fine. It came because Google improperly advised Safari users on opt-out options. Do Not Track is probably ignored as often as honored on the web. If you don't want cookies and tags following you around the internet you have to take much more active actions to avoid it. A Safari setting is pretty useless, more a feel-good thing than effective.
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/08/26/do-not-track-the-privacy-standard-thats-melting-away/ ;
And that brings up another point of contention: Services where you must actively opt-out rather than opt-in and no that's not specific to Google services. Even Apple has required users to actively opt-out for some tracking features, with the default being on. You should always have to opt-in IMHO. Even when the FCC very recently fined Verizon for the way they used super-cookies (and some articles implied they are illegal; they aren't but should be IMHO) they still allowed Verizon to go on using them and leave the default as on, meaning to avoid it customers have to actively opt-out.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Verizon-fined-1.35-million-for-illegal-use-of-mobile-traffic-supercookies_id79071
Way too few people have any idea what they've actually agreed to when using their mobile devices and computers.