Facebook admits listening in, transcribing users’ conversations

The tech giant acknowledged the transcriptions in a statement, saying that they were made with users’ permission and have now been stopped

It had hired hundreds of contractors to listen to users’ audio, so that it could test the ability of its artificial intelligence to interpret messages

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Facebook has given differing responses in the past to reports that it uses users’ audio recordings. Photo: AP

Published: 9:07am, 14 Aug 2019Updated: 9:15am, 14 Aug 2019

Facebook has paid hundreds of contractors to listen to and transcribe snippets of users’ conversations, US media reported on Tuesday, amid heightened scrutiny of the social network’s data collection practices.

The company acknowledged the transcriptions, which were first reported by Bloomberg, telling the news agency in a statement that they were made with users’ permission, but that the practice has nonetheless been stopped.

“Much like Apple and Google, we paused human review of audio more than a week ago,” the company said.

The contractors were testing the ability of the social network’s artificial intelligence to interpret messages, and the only users affected were those on Facebook Messenger app who had opted to have their voice chats transcribed.

Bloomberg said the contractors working on the project were “rattled” by listening to private audio whose origin was not disclosed and which sometimes contained vulgar content.

Amazon gives users the option of blocking the collection of their voice by Alexa, the company’s ‘personal assistant’. Photo: Reuters

The contractors also were not told the reason they were doing the transcribing, the news agency reported.

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