Apple's new Audio Intelligence features on the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 listen to the conversations around you, and lawyers in states that require everyone's consent to record are not sure that is legal. Speech processed continuously with no recording at the end may still count as interception under state law, according to attorneys in California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Washington interviewed by Bloomberg.
Apple's September privacy paper describes the protections, according to AppleInsider. Audio passes through a constantly overwritten buffer in the Secure Exclave, a walled-off part of the S11 chip that Apple says even it cannot reach, and Siri Recap sends it encrypted to the paired iPhone, which condenses it into text and deletes the raw audio. Live Rewind plays a chime even in silent mode when it shows you the last 15 seconds as text. Siri Recap gives the people around you no comparable warning, and if a court decides that matters, the wearer would be the one held legally responsible.