TECH NEWS – Sound conversations were recorded on the Messenger application, were transmitted to employees for verification of the quality of the transcription of the software.

In a statement sent to Bloomberg, Facebook said it was transcribed using sound recordings of conversations of some users, revealed Tuesday, August 13, the financial agency. The company founded by Mark Zuckerberg said that users had authorized the Facebook Messenger application to access their microphone and that they used it to send them messages to transcribe.

Subcontractors from Menlo Park (California) then received some of these anonymous messages to verify their artificial intelligence (AI) system.

Facebook, which has just paid 5 million US dollars. “Just like Apple or Google, we have frozen the practice of making sound recordings last week,” says the company.

Read also Record fine but painless for Facebook

According to Bloomberg, the transcription staff worried about the ethical implications of their work, they were not known from the origin they were recorded.

The other giants of the Web too Apple, Google and Amazon, who sell all voice assistants, have already acknowledged doing so to improve the responses of their applications. The first two have indicated that they have temporarily suspended this practice very recently. Jeff’s company has chosen for users to block the use of their exchanges with Alexa, the facilitator of his voice assistants.

But the question of listening by Facebook users of conversations is particularly sensitive. For several years, it is suspected to record conversations of smartphone users in micro – the great relevance of some of their targeted advertising has given rise to this theory, that the network has always been blocked.

The CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, had already had the hearing before the Congress in April 2018. “Gary Peters, Democratic Senator from Michigan” We do not do that, “he said.

Saved in the columns of Bloomberg they do not have much choice to see: they are not served by the microphone of their users – these are knowingly recorded audio content on Messenger – we sent content personal, users, Facebook users, Facebook, but to improve its software, so they made the other giants of the Web.

Source: BBC