Privacy Guides

16763 readers

2 users here now

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.

You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more...

Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!

This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.

Moderation Rules:

We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

jonah@lemmy.jonaharagon.net

304

Dangerous? Signal Blasts Google Effort to Use AI to Scan for Scam Phone Calls (uk.pcmag.com)

submitted 5 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/privacyguides@lemmy.one

52 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Google’s AI model will potentially listen in on all your phone calls — or at least ones it suspects are coming from a fraudster.

To protect the user’s privacy, the company says Gemini Nano operates locally, without connecting to the internet. “This protection all happens on-device, so your conversation stays private to you. We’ll share more about this opt-in feature later this year,” the company says.

“This is incredibly dangerous,” says Meredith Whittaker, the president of a foundation for the end-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal.

Whittaker —a former Google employee— argues that the entire premise of the anti-scam call feature poses a potential threat. That’s because Google could potentially program the same technology to scan for other keywords, like asking for access to abortion services.

“It lays the path for centralized, device-level client-side scanning,” she said in a post on Twitter/X. “From detecting 'scams' it's a short step to ‘detecting patterns commonly associated w/ seeking reproductive care’ or ‘commonly associated w/ providing LGBTQ resources' or ‘commonly associated with tech worker whistleblowing.’”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I feel like this would require cooperation from the manufacturer, as Google doesn't actually provide the Phone app (except when they are the manufacturer).

[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

except that it does. some OEMs like Samsung serve their own (or at least Samsung used to; not sure if it's still true), but it's definitely available on non-Google-branded phones.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It's available on all phones, but they all have their own version, forked from long ago. Even the standard AOSP Phone app has long split from Google (who have ceased open source development of the app).

[–] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

I'm well aware that it's available to install on all phones, but I'm also fairly sure that other OEMs do use it as the default dialer, too. I saw it preinstalled on one of my mom's phones, either her current midrange Samsung, or her previous Xiaomi.

[–] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

They might be taking about Google Fi.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 1 points 5 months ago

They seem to be offering a lot of this sort of thing as a value-add for buying a Pixel

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Google doesn't actually provide the Phone app

Yes they do. Anyone can download the Google Phone app.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

But downloading an app won't install it as a system app.

[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 1 points 5 months ago

What difference does that make?