The month in technology: The BBC develops in-house voice assistant and ICO probes facial recognition use

The BBC creates its own Beeb voice assistant

The BBC is developing its own in-house voice assistant called Beeb, which will integrate the broadcaster’s website and iPlayer apps on smart TVs.

According to The Guardian, the BBC has no plans to release its own smart speaker featuring the assistant but instead will make the software available to other manufacturers to incorporate it into their speakers.

The Beeb will be focused on letting people interact with the BBC’s services. The broadcaster is also developing the assistant to understand regional dialects and is currently testing the assistant using voice data from its staff across the country.

“The BBC will have the freedom to experiment with new programmes, features and experiences without someone else’s permission to build it in a certain way,” a spokesperson from the corporation told The Guardian.

The ICO investigates facial recognition scanning in King’s Cross

The Information Commissioner’s Officer (ICO) has launched a formal investigation into the use of mass facial recognition scanning in London’s Kings Cross.

Earlier this month, hundreds of thousands of Brits were unknowingly passing through a 67-acre area in King’s Cross where AI technology was being used.

“I remain deeply concerned about the growing use of facial recognition technology in public spaces, not only by law enforcement agencies but also increasingly by the private sector,” said Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham.

“We have launched an investigation following concerns reported in the media regarding the use of live facial recognition in the King’s Cross area of central London, which thousands of people pass through every day.”

The development’s owners confirmed earlier this month that facial recognition software was being used around the 67-acre, 50-building site, reports The Guardian. The consortium of Argent, a property developer, Hermes Investment Management, on behalf of BT Pensioners, and AustralianSuper, an Australian pension scheme, said the tech was being used “in the interest of public safety and to ensure that everyone who visits has the best possible experience”.

Apple vows to stop listening to Siri recordings

Apple has announced it will no longer retain Siri voice recordings by default. The Siri privacy changes followed a report in The Guardian in July that contractors were regularly listening to conversations from people giving voice commands.

In early August, Apple said it would be ending the contractor programme and it had let go at least 300 contractors in Europe who were part of that programme.

The contractors had been listening to Siri conversations to augment the voice assistant’s AI. The human guidance helped to improve the software through a “grading process”. The tech giant will continue this process but only if users agree to opt in going forward.

Apple is not implementing any of these changes until the software update becomes available for nits operating systems that will allow users to opt in.

The tech firm also said only Apple employees will be allowed to listen to audio recordings for users that opt in, rather than contract workers.

New Facebook app allows data sharing with close friends

Facebook is developing a new messaging app to promote sharing data among users and their closest friends.

The Verge reported that Threads, which is designed as a companion app to Instagram, invites users to automatically share their location, speed and battery life with friends, along with text, photo and video messages using Instagram’s creative tools.

Facebook is said to be testing the app internally. It builds on the “Close Friends” feature introduced to Instagram last year, which allows users to specify a subset of their followers to share private posts and stories with.