Neon has been disabled, the famous free app that pays for calls

A new application promises to push people to record their phone calls, which are then used Training artificial intelligence modelsIt was disabled after reporting a major security defect.

Neon is still at the top of 10 free iOS applications, but then Techcrunch mentioned Thursday, on a security defect and found the news site in the service, and its servers seem to have become unavailable for users.

It is still possible to download the application, but it is no longer working. It is unclear whether the service will return or the time it will take.

Email messages to Neon MobileThe company is behind the application, not returned.

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According to Techcrunch, a defect in the application allowed people to reach calls from other users, texts and descriptive data about calls. Techcrunch said that the company informed Nion users that it was temporarily stopping the service, but it did not express the reason.

Before disrupting the application, a legal expert warned of the troubles that it may cause, as well as the potential security defects.

David Hop, founder and administrative partner Gama Law, Who advises customers on thorny technological issues, CNET told that since some states have rules for recording phone calls, people who use neon should be very careful or avoid them completely. Without certainty of its legitimacy, warning, “Don’t use this app.”

Criticism of calls

Neon is still available (at least now) IOS and Android. The company records the phone calls issued to users and pay them to $ 30 a day for regular calls or 30 cents per minute if the call is for another Nion user. Calls to non -neon users pay 15 cents per minute. The application also offers $ 30 for referrals.

“You can spend the exchange once you earn the first ten cents,” a Neon application questions and answers “Once the recovery, payments are usually treated within three working days, although the timing may sometimes be shorter or longer,” he says.

The company promises that it only withdraws from the recording of one side of the phone conversation, which is the caller, which seems to be a way to strive the laws of the state It is prohibited to register phone calls without permission.

Although many states require only one person in connection that realizes a call, others, including California, Florida and Maryland, have laws that require all parties to a phone call to agree to registration. It is unclear how neon works with calls to those countries. For neon neon calls, the approval of the two parties is supposed to be implicit.

The application does not record the regular phone application calls, only those that were made inside the Neon application or received from another person who uses neon.

Although the iOS version has risen popularity – it has reached the highest level in second place this week – the Android version appears to face some problems, at least according to some recent reviews on the Google Play Store. Android app only has a 2.4 -star rating, and Some user comments Reporting network errors when people try to take advantage of the neon application.

Artificial intelligence training using your data

According to the common questions of the company, call data is hidden and used to train Amnesty International Voice Assistants. “This helps to train their systems to understand the diverse world discourse,” she says.

Artificial intelligence companies need Increase data quantities To train their models, which is why neon offers a cash incentive.

“The industry is hungry for real talks because it captures timing, filling words, interruptions and emotions missed by artificial data, which improves the quality of artificial intelligence models,” said Zahra Timsah, CEO of the company. I am Gentic AIWho works in compliance with Amnesty International.

“But this does not give applications a pass to privacy or approval,” Timsah said.

Pushing

Techcrunch,, Which was one of the first sites to write about the application, indicated that sharing audio data can be safety risks, even if the company promised to remove identification information from the data.

Neon can pay its luck, especially in the states and countries, when it comes to the laws or regulations of privacy and privacy, depending on how to address approval and the location of the data.

“We do not know whether there are sufficient guarantees to exclude a person at the other end of the conversation, but there will be a level of approval, and inform them of submitting it,” he said. Hodin equivalenceData Governance expert and his consultant colleague in the Info-Tech Research Group.

Howa even if the data is anonymous, artificial intelligence may not face a difficult time to discover who is on the line in the Neon conversation.

He said, “AI can conclude a lot, correction or otherwise, to fill the gaps in what it receives, and it may be able to provide direct links if the names or personal information are part of the stock exchange,” he said.

Can I be responsible for call recordings?

Regardless of the requirements that the neon application had to meet in order to include it in the Apple App Store, it is reasonable that you still have questions about the legitimacy of recording phone calls, especially in cases where all parties must agree.

This may be a major reason to avoid neon, according to Hoppe, the legal expert.

“In the United States, it is not legal to register a phone call because the conditions of service in the application say you can,” Hobby said. “Therefore, imagine a California user who records a call with a friend, also in California, without telling them. This user has just violated the California Penal Code. They may face criminal charges, frighteningly equally, by the person he recorded.”

He said that violations may lead to penalties of thousands of dollars for each accident.

Hop said that the Nion service conditions will not protect the application user if they face legal responsibility for the records. It does not help, legally, that the person who registered in return for that is pushed.

“The user is to press the record button,” said Hopby. “The strongest recommendation for me for anyone who thinks about it will be: unless you are completely sure of the laws of approval in your jurisdiction and the condition of the person you are calling, and I have been explicitly reported and received approval from each other to the call, do not use this application.”