Your Skype calls are not as private as you might think. Contractors working for the app’s owner Microsoft are listening to private Skype and Cortana conversations, according to a story first reported by Joseph Cox at Vice’s Motherboard.
The revelation that contractors are listening to Skype calls made using the app's translation service came after a cache of internal documents, screenshots, and audio recordings were leaked to Motherboard. The recordings included private conversations such as people talking intimately to loved ones and others apparently discussing relationship problems.
Motherboard also found that Microsoft contractors are listening to recordings of voice commands via the firm’s voice assistant Cortana.
The contractor who leaked the documents told Motherboard: "Some stuff I've heard could clearly be described as phone sex. I've heard people entering full addresses in Cortana commands, or asking Cortana to provide search returns on pornography queries.”
Microsoft is not the only big tech firm found to be listening to calls. Last month, it emerged that Apple Siri conversations were being reviewed by external contractors. In April, it emerged that Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa was sometimes recording private conversations. Also July, it was confirmed that the Google Assistant was doing the same.
However, both Google and Apple have stopped contractors from listening to conversations for the time being.
Skype and Cortana eavesdropping: What does Microsoft say?
Launched in 2015, Skype’s translator service takes advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to allow users to receive near real-time audio translations during their phone and video calls.
The Skype website states that the firm may analyze phone call audio that a user will want to translate to improve its services. However, it does not inform people that some of this is done by humans.
The FAQ for Skype Translator states: "Skype collects and uses your conversation to help improve Microsoft products and services. To help the translation and speech recognition technology learn and grow, sentences and automatic transcripts are analyzed and any corrections are entered into our system, to build more performant services."
I contacted Microsoft for a comment and will update this story when it arrives.
Skype and Cortana are listening: What to do
After the Google Home and Apple Siri revelations, the fact that another large tech firm is listening in isn’t a big surprise.
“For voice controls to adapt and evolve, it’s going to be very difficult for systems–human or otherwise–to not listen in to conversations,” says Jake Moore, cybersecurity expert at ESET. But he says the “always listening” feature on smart devices “poses a huge grey area where technology meets cultural problems” and “we are currently at the beginning of the shift.”
Ethical hacker John Opdenakker says the fact that humans listen to often sensitive audio fragments of people is “a very serious privacy infringement.”
Given that users are not informed this is happening, it’s also a very serious violation of the EU Update to Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) if it concerns the audio from users that live in the European Economic Area, says Opdenakker.
Independent security researcher Sean Wright agrees: “While there is perhaps a legitimate need for these calls to be monitored by a human to help improve the service, it should be made explicit to users that their call may be recorded and listened to by humans.”
So what do you do now? As I mentioned in my article about Apple Siri, sometimes the only way to ensure security and privacy is not to use the offending technology at all. Instead, it’s better to use secure communications to conduct your calls, such as Signal.
“Where possible, use privacy-focused tools such as Signal which do provide end-to-end encryption, and most importantly, base their operating model on this,” says Wright.
That’s right folks: There is a reason that firms like Signal advertise their use of end-to-end encryption. Given this latest news, I’m certainly likely to turn away from Skype.
