Apple on Friday said it suspended its global programme where it analysed recordings from users interacting with its voice assistant Siri due to privacy concerns. The decision comes in the light of a report from in The Guardian last week which said the company’s contractors around the globe tasked with reviewing the recordings regularly heard confidential information and private conversations.
“While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally,” Apple stated, adding that in a future software update, users will be able to opt out of the programme.
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In a recent report, The Guardian quoted an anonymous whistleblower who currently works with the firm to reveal that Apple contractors are paid to regularly listen to user conversations, including confidential medical information, drug deals, and even recordings of couples having sex, with its virtual assistant Siri. The revelation came as a huge setback for Apple and its claims of pro-privacy policies—the company's most powerful weapon against Android phones.
Apple, in response to the report, had claimed that only a very small random subset—less than one per cent of daily Siri activations—are used for this purpose and are "pseudonymised recordings".
Earlier, it was revealed that Google and Amazon, too, were guilty of allowing its contractors to listen to recordings of conversations between humans and their voice assistants—Google Assistant and Alexa.