Apple’s latest smartwatch update has raised concerns about privacy, with critics accusing the tech giant of “normalising surveillance” through a controversial new tool that lets users rewind and transcribe real-life conversations.The company announced overnight that two new smartwatches, Series 12 and Ultra 4, will come with four opt-in “audio intelligence” tools that are powered by audio gathered by the watches’ microphones. Be the first to know when news breaks. Download our new appThey include sound and music recognition, a conversation recap feature, and “Live Rewind” so a user can see a transcription of anything that was said in their environment in the previous 15 seconds.The watches will also feature an upgraded Shazam feature that automatically identifies background music in the device’s Smart Stack without a single tap, alongside a Sound Recognition tool that alerts wearers to crucial environmental noises like smoke alarms, baby cries, and doorbells without needing an iPhone nearby.The news has been met with widespread pushback on social media, with many punters accusing the iPhone maker of bringing eavesdropping tools into the mainstream.“If you can rewind 15 seconds at any given time, that means they’re always listening. Crazy work,” one user posted.Another commentator declared that “surveillance just got more mainstream”, while others accused Apple of disguising spy-level monitoring as a convenient daily productivity tool.Seemingly aware of the potential backlash, Apple said that privacy protection was built into the new features.“These features do not create or store audio recordings, and raw audio used for processing is completely inaccessible to the operating systems, apps, the user, or Apple,” the company wrote in a report.According to Apple, the audio streams into a temporary, isolated memory buffer inside the smartwatch’s new S11 chip, known as the Secure Exclave. For features like Live Rewind, old sound is continuously overwritten by new audio on a rolling 15-second loop. If a user does not double-press the crown, that temporary audio is permanently deleted without ever leaving the chip.For longer summaries, Siri Recap processes condensed transcripts through Apple’s Private Cloud Compute infrastructure, automatically deleting any unsaved notes after seven days.To prevent wearers from covertly monitoring partners, friends, or colleagues, Apple has built mandatory physical warnings into the device. Whenever Live Rewind is activated, the watch will play an audible chime to alert everyone nearby, even if the device is set to silent mode or connected to wireless headphones. A distinct full-screen animation and microphone indicator will also light up on the display.Apple has also confirmed that transcripts will deliberately omit speaker attribution, meaning text snippets will not label who said what or attach names to quotes. Siri Recap summaries are also programmed to automatically filter out sensitive personal information, including financial details, government identification numbers, and explicit content.“Contextual information is also sent to improve summary quality,” Apple said. “For example, Now Playing data helps the model understand that speech may have originated from music or a podcast. Calendar data can help generate accurate titles of summaries. “High-level location labels such as home, work, and school, along with locality information such as city, state, and country, add context to the summarisation. Point-of-interest categories like ‘grocery store’ or ‘park’ may also be included. Precise location and specific points of interest are not included.”The new capabilities will require an Apple Watch Series 12 or Ultra 4 paired with an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone running iOS 27. While basic sound and music detection will be available at launch, Live Rewind and Siri Recap are scheduled to roll out in public beta later this year in English, with strict age restrictions preventing users under 13 from accessing the conversational tools.