The New York Times International - 27.08.2019

6 | TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

tech

Many of us ask the digital companions
in our homes, whether Amazon’s
Alexa, Apple’s Siri or Google Assistant,
to handle innocuous tasks like setting a
timer and playing music.
What most of us may not realize is
that in some instances, there might be
a person listening in, too.
In two separate reports in The
Guardian and Bloomberg News, whis-
tle-blowers recently said they had
listened in on Siri recordings and
Alexa activations that inadvertently
recorded couples having sex and crimi-
nals making drug deals. Another publi-
cation, VRT, chronicled how a Google
subcontractor had shared more than
1,000 excerpts from Google recordings,
which journalists then used to identify
some individuals.
In the tech industry, it’s an open
secret that artificial intelligence isn’t
all that smart yet. It takes lots of peo-
ple manually sifting through data to
train the computing systems. That
means humans occasionally cull
through voice recordings to train
Alexa, Siri and Google to understand
the nuances of speech, such as distin-
guishing spoken words like “Austin”
from “Boston,” or “U2” from
“YouTube.”
But tech companies have been
opaque in disclosing these practices to
us. And they may also have over-
reached in the types of recordings that
they gather.
Google, Apple and Amazon have
publicly said that fewer than 1 percent
of recordings were subject to human
review.
Apple and Google also said that they
had suspended their human review
programs, while Amazon expanded its
Alexa assistant to include a suite of
privacy controls.
That got me wondering: What can
we do to protect our privacy with these
smart assistants, short of chucking
them into the recycling bin?
The good news is that there are
steps we can take. Amazon and Google
offer the ability to disable human
vetting for their virtual assistants.
Apple has said it plans to release a
software update that will let people opt
in to its program, which involves hu-
mans grading Siri samples for quality
control, rather than being part of the
program by default.
And there are other things we can
do, such as deleting recordings and
turning off sensors, to minimize shar-

ing with the companies.

Here’s a comprehensive guide on

what to do to protect your privacy with

each of the virtual assistants.

HOW TO CURTAIL SHARING BY ALEXA

Among smart assistants, Alexa has the

most comprehensive and straightfor-

ward set of privacy controls. Amazon

recently released the Alexa privacy

hub, which has a thorough explanation

of the types of data collected by the

virtual assistant and how to change its

privacy settings.

HERE’S HOW TO OPT OUT OF HUMAN VETTING:

• Open the Alexa app on your smart-
  phone and tap Settingsand then select
  Alexa Privacy.


• Tap Manage How Your Data Im-
  proves Alexa.


• For the control that says Help Im-
  prove Amazon Services and Develop
  New Features,toggle the switch to the
  offposition.

HOW TO DELETE VOICE RECORDINGS:

• In the same Alexa Privacymenu,
  select Review Voice History.


• In date range, select the time frame of
  recordings you want to delete, such as
  All History.


• Tap Delete All Recordings for All
  History.

OTHER PRECAUTIONS:

• Alexa devices include a physical
  button to disable their microphones.
  Hit the kill switchwhenever you are
  having sensitive conversations. The
  device will illuminate with a red light
  to indicate that the microphone is off.


• Some Alexa devices, like the Echo
  Spot alarm clock, have a built-in cam-
  era.
  The easiest way to disable it is to

say, “Alexa, turn the camera off.”

If you still feel uncomfortable with

the camera, consider buying a cheap

webcam cover that can slide over the

lens.

Amazon said in a statement that it

takes customer privacy seriously. “We

continuously review our practices and

procedures to ensure we’re providing

customers with the best experiences

and privacy choices,” the company

said.

DELETING SIRI RECORDINGS

Siri is the most lacking in privacy

controls among the virtual assistants,

and the process to manage user data is

the least straightforward.

For example, Apple does not offer an

option to let people opt in to its so-

called grading program, though it has

said it plans to do so in a future soft-

ware update.

There is no ability to review Siri

recordings.

Siri does take some steps to mask

your identity.

When you make requests with an

iPhone, for example, the device associ-

ates those with a random identifier

instead of your Apple account ID,

according to the company. To reset that

random identifier, you can turn off Siri

and then turn it back on.

Disabling Siri will also delete your

data associated with it, including re-

cordings.

DISABLING SIRI TO ERASE YOUR DATA:

• Open the Settingsapp, then tap Gen-
  eral, thenKeyboards. In the Enable
  Dictation control, switch it to the off
  position.


• Return to the Settingsapp. Select Siri
  & Search. Then disable the switches
  for Listen for “Hey Siri”and Press
  Side Button for Siri. You will then see a
  message asking if you want to disable
  Siri, which will remove your data from
  Apple’s servers. Tap Turn Off Siriand
  your Siri history will be deleted.


• To re-enable Siri, go back to each of
  those settings and turn them back on.
  Some of the sensitive recordings
  uploaded to Siri appeared to have
  come from unintentional activations.
  This can happen, for instance, as
  when the crown of the Apple Watch is
  pressed down by accident, which sum-
  mons the assistant.

A PRECAUTION WITH AN APPLE WATCH:

• To prevent the watch crown from
  triggering Siri, disable the Siri side
  button on the iPhone. In the Settings
  app, tap on Siri & Search, then toggle
  off Press Side Button for Siri. This will
  simultaneously disable the shortcut on
  the watch.
  Apple declined to comment beyond
  an earlier statement announcing the
  suspension of its Siri-grading program.

PRIVACY ON GOOGLE HOME

Google offers some controls for tweak-

ing privacy settings for Google Assist-

ant on Android phones and Google

Home smart speakers, among other

products.

While Google’s human review pro-

gram is suspended, you can still make

sure you’re not a part of it by opting

out.

The search company also lets you

automatically delete Google Assistant

requests made after a period of time.

HERE’S HOW TO DISABLE HUMAN REVIEWS:

• Visit Google’s web tool called Activity
  controls.


• Scroll down to Voice & Audio Activity.
  Toggle this switch off.

AUTOMATICALLY DELETING RECORDINGS:

• Again, visit Google’s Activity controls
  web tool.


• Under Web & App Activity, click
  Manage Activity.


• Click Choose to Delete Automatically.
  Then click Keep for 3 months then
  delete automatically.
  A Google spokesman declined to
  comment and referred to a blog post,
  in which the company described its
  process of working with human lan-
  guage reviewers to improve speech
  recognition.

Hey Siri, quit spying on me

Brian X. Chen

TECH FIX

GLENN HARVEY

Digital aids like the Amazon Echo may be recording you when you use them. But there

are steps you can take to protect your privacy.

AMAZON

If you go shopping for a television today,
virtually everything in the store will be a
4K TV. Only some, however, have an in-
creasingly popular feature called High
Dynamic Range, or H.D.R. This little ac-
ronym can make your favorite shows
look sharper and more vibrant and it
might just be worth spending a little ex-
tra on your next television.
High Dynamic Range actually refers
to a collection of traits that lead to a bet-
ter overall image. On televisions that
support H.D.R., bright parts of an image
will appear brighter than before, while
dark parts of an image will be darker
than on older televisions. This gives TV
shows and movies better contrast and
can make some scenes feel more real.
H.D.R. also expands the range of colors
your television can display beyond what
you’re used to seeing on previous gener-
ations of televisions.
All this adds up to a meaningful up-
grade, if your television and the TV
shows and movies you watch support it.

HOW H.D.R. WORKS
Your television can display only a small
fraction of the colors your eyes can see.
Each pixel on your screen contains a
tiny red, green and blue light. These
lights can shine up to 256 different
shades of each color. Combined, every
pixel can display up to about 16 million
colors. That’s more than enough to paint
a picture, but H.D.R. screens can do a lot
better.
On a basic H.D.R. TV, each light can
shine up to 1,024 shades of red, green or
blue. This means every pixel can display
over a billion individual colors. This ex-
pands what’s known as the “color gam-
ut,” or the range of possible colors your
television can reproduce. You might also
hear this part of H.D.R. referred to as
“wide color gamut” or “wide color
space” in stores. Not only does it mean
that it can produce more vivid versions
of individual colors, but it can display
finer detail on shades in between. This
means shots of things like forests or

sand, which can often have subtle

shades of similar colors, appear much

more vibrant and detailed than they

would have on previous TVs.

In addition to expanding the color

gamut, H.D.R. TVs can also display

brighter brights and darker darks. What

your brain normally interprets as

“black” on a TV screen is more accu-

rately some shade of gray. Depending on

the kind of television you have, this

could be a very light gray, which means

bright colors don’t stand out as much.

By lowering the black level, and letting

your television emit more light, H.D.R.

makes it possible to display much richer

pictures.

H.D.R. doesn’t set a specific standard

for how dark or bright the television it-

self must be capable of. Instead, it de-

fines what range a TV has to meet in or-

der to be described as “H.D.R.” The

UHD Alliance uses a rainbow-twist Ul-

tra HD Premium label, for example, as a

way to signal that a given television is

capable of a specific peak brightness

and black level that’s far above what

regular HD sets are capable of. This

means that a television with that label

has the necessary specs required to

make H.D.R. content look good. Some

TVs may have an even wider range of

levels and thus look better, but this sets a

baseline.

TWO COMPETING STANDARDS

Further complicating your shopping

trip is the fact that there are two very

different versions of High Dynamic

Range. Both provide the benefits de-

scribed above, but one is better — and

more costly — than the other. The first,

HDR10, is an open standard that is free

for manufacturers to include in their

sets, and predictably, is in the majority

of televisions that support H.D.R. Dolby

Vision, on the other hand, provides even

more colors and better bright/dark lev-

els, but Dolby charges manufacturers a

fee to use it. This means that Dolby Vi-

sion-compatible TVs are likely more ex-

pensive than other H.D.R. TVs.

There’s nothing stopping manufac-

turers from including both HDR10 and

Dolby Vision in a single set (aside from

cost), so some may even support both.

HDR10 supports 10-bit color, which gets

you that huge billion-color gamut dis-

cussed earlier. It also sets a baseline

brightness level that’s higher than you’ll

usually see on a non-H.D.R. set.

Dolby Vision, on the other hand, sup-

ports 12-bit color for a whopping 68 bil-

lion possible colors. The Dolby spec also

allows for televisions that support up to

10 times the brightness levels of even

baseline HDR10 sets, and can even ad-

just brightness levels on the fly during a

movie or show. But in practice most tele-

visions don’t reach that upper limit. In

other words, it will be a long time before

you can buy a TV that pushes the limit of

what Dolby Vision can do.

Dolby Vision offers some advantages

over HDR10, but here’s the kicker: The

TV shows and movies you watch have to

specifically support Dolby Vision, not

just generic H.D.R. However, since com-

paratively few televisions can support

this — and Dolby Vision-compatible TVs

tend to be more expensive — many pro-

ductions optimize for the basic HDR

standard instead. That means, for now

at least, you’re spending more money on

a better television even though there’s

less content that makes use of it.

COMPATIBILITY OF CONTENT

Your fancy new High Dynamic Range

television won’t mean much if the TV

shows and movies you watch still look

like the old stuff you’re used to watch-

ing. In 2019, there’s more H.D.R. content

available than ever.

Netflix has a wide collection of shows

that stream in H.D.R., including

“Stranger Things” and “Glow.” And Am-

azon has its own shows and movies, like

“The Grand Tour,” all streaming in 4K

H.D.R. You can also rent or buy sup-

ported movies from iTunes or Vudu and

stream them to your television.

The 4K H.D.R. content will require a

fairly high-speed internet connection

(25 Mbps or higher according to Net-

flix’s help documents), although

streaming content can compress the

quality compared to playing it from a

disc.

While Netflix, Amazon and Vudu

charge more for 4K content, that up-

grade includes H.D.R. Apple, on the

other hand, doesn’t charge extra for a 4K

upgrade on its movie rentals at all.

When it comes to broadcast TV, there

are a few options available. However,

your television will need to support a

slightly different H.D.R. standard called

H.L.G. It’s common for TVs that support

HDR10 to also support H.L.G., but

there’s not as much H.D.R. content com-

ing in.

4K Blu-ray players offer the best op-

tion, as these don’t need to stream over

the internet. If you want to watch H.D.R.

content, you’ll need a compatible Blu-

ray player, as well as 4K H.D.R. versions

of any movies you buy. 4K discs can be a

bit more expensive than a standard HD

Blu-ray, and not all of them will fully sup-

port Dolby Vision, but most of them sup-

port some form of H.D.R. and when you

upgrade to 4K, H.D.R. almost always

comes with it.

Finally, there are H.D.R.-compatible

games. If you have a PS4 Pro or an Xbox

One X (the latter of which is also a 4K

H.D.R.-compatible Blu-ray player), then

some games can make use of H.D.R. on

your television. The list of compatible

games for each console grows every

year.

ADDING MORE PIXELS

Eventually, High Dynamic Range will

probably be available on just about ev-

ery television you can buy. For now, you

can buy a 4K TV without it, but you

might not want to skip it. Upgrading to a

4K TV adds more pixels. Depending on

how close you sit to your TV, you might

not even be able to tell the difference.

H.D.R., however, changes what those

pixels can display, and adds a much

wider range of colors and better bright-

ness levels than you had before. Up-

grading to 4K can be a costly endeavor,

requiring a new television, Blu-ray play-

er or game console, but H.D.R. is an

even better stealth upgrade that comes

along for the ride.

Outside of the television itself, H.D.R.

doesn’t cost anything extra once you’re

in the 4K world.

If you want to have the option for the

best possible version of a show or movie,

then a Dolby Vision TV is your best,

most expensive bet. Fortunately, most

Dolby Vision TVs also support HDR

so you won’t miss out on anything. If

you’re O.K. with just basic H.D.R. —

which is still a much better picture than

you’re used to — then you can stick with

HDR10.

Whichever direction you choose to go,

though, if you’re planning to buy a new

4K TV and you care about picture qual-

ity at all, High Dynamic Range will do

even more for you than 4K alone would.

Even if you have to spend a little extra

money for it.

Why it’s worth considering H.D.R. on your next TV

Televisions with High Dynamic Range make bright parts of the image seem brighter, and the dark sections seem darker.

GRZEGORZ CZAPSKI/ALAMY, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK

Term refers to collection

of features that combine

for a more vibrant image

BY ERIC RAVENSCRAFT