Apple apologized that contractors were permitted to listen to Siri users ‘ voice recordings to rate them.
The company announced the existence of the Guardian report, after completing a revision of the grading programme.
According to several previous graders, accidents were regularly retrieved, confidential information recorded, illegal acts recorded and even sexual users from the Siri.
“We realize we haven’t fully met our high ideals as a result of our review and we apologize for that,” Apple said in an unsigned statement posted on his website. “We stopped the Siri grading program, as we earlier announced. We intend to resume later this autumn when our customers receive software updates.
After resuming the rating program, the firm has made three adjustments to the Siri method:
- The audio recordings of Siri customers will no longer be stored by default, although the applications will be retained automatically.
- You can choose to share your records with Apple. “We hope a lot of individuals will help Siri get better,” said the business.
- These audio samples are only permitted for Apple employees. Previously, the company had outsourced the work to contractors. Over the last two weeks, the agreements have finished and hundreds of employment losses worldwide have resulted.
Every significant technology manufacturer has been shown in the previous six months to be running human supervision programs that have been running them secretly for years.
After a leak of recordings Google stopped the program in Europe and promised to revise its safeguards. The firm has, however, not altered its overall human monitoring methods, but committed itself instead to “improving our explanation of privacy and our environments.”
Microsoft did not make any adjustments to its program which involved not only listening to its Cortana voice assistant, but also listening to the Skype talks with a translation function. However, when the practice was found, it updated its privacy policy.
Peter Beaumont is a senior reporter on the Guardian’s Global Development desk. He has reported extensively from conflict zones including Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East and is the author of The Secret Life of War: Journeys Through Modern Conflict. Email: peter@thehearus.com
