Apple Changes the Way It Listens to Your Siri Recordings Following Privacy Concerns

The move came a month after The Guardian reported^[1] that third-party
contractors were regularly listening to private conversations of
Apple users giving voice commands to Siri in a bid to improve the
quality of its product’s response.

While the data received by the contractors were anonymized and
not associated to Apple devices, the private conversations—which
also includes private discussions between doctors and patients,
business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, people having sex and
so on—sometimes reveal identifiable details like a person’s name or
medical records.

In response to the backlash Apple received after the report went
public, the company initially responded by temporarily suspending
the program earlier this month while it thoroughly reviewed its
practices and policies.

Now, Apple today revealed^[2] that the company intends
to continue that program in the fall, but only after making three
significant changes to it, as mentioned below:

• First, Apple will no longer retain audio recordings of Siri
  interactions by default. Instead, the company will continue to use
  computer-generated transcripts to help Siri improve.
• Second, Apple will allow users to opt-in to having their audio
  recordings listened to by human reviewers to help improve Siri’s
  responses. Users who choose to participate can opt-out at any
  time.
• Third, if you opt in to the grading program, only Apple
  employees will be allowed to listen to audio samples of your Siri
  interactions, rather than third-party contractors. The company also
  aims to delete Siri recordings when it determines users triggered
  it accidentally.

As a result of these changes, at least 300 contractors in Europe
who were part of Apple’s grading program have lost their jobs, The
Irish Times reports.
Besides announcing the changes, Apple also assured its users that
its Siri personal assistant has never been used outside the
company, saying:

Apple is not the only major technology company that has been
found listening to its smart assistant recordings and forced to
rethink its approach to reviewing users’ audio recordings amid
privacy concerns.

Earlier this month, Google temporarily stopped human contractors
from
listening^[4] to Assistant recordings
around the world. Amazon also changed its
settings^[5] to its users opt-out of
having their Alexa recordings reviewed by humans.

^[3]