Apple apologizes for having contractors listen to Siri recordings

Apple is apologizing following reports that contractors were listening to users' Siri recordings, saying it fell short of its "ideals."

The company on Wednesday issued this apology while announcing updates to its audio review policies, reports The Verge. The Guardian reported in July that in reviewing some Siri audio to improve the virtual assistant, "contractors regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex." The fact that humans might listen to audio recorded by Siri wasn't being clearly disclosed to Apple users. Apple at the time said that only a small amount of Siri requests are analyzed in this way.

Apple now says that after reviewing this program, which it previously suspended, "we realize we haven't been fully living up to our high ideals, and for that we apologize." It plans to resume a Siri audio review program, but going forward, customers will have to opt in, and only Apple employees, not contractors, can listen to Siri audio samples. Apple also says it will work to delete any recordings from when Siri is accidentally triggered and won't retain audio recordings of Siri interactions by default. The company is hoping that users do opt into this "knowing that Apple respects their data and has strong privacy controls in place."

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Apple certainly wasn't alone in facing criticism over reports of human contractors listening to users' audio that could sometimes include sensitive information, with similar complaints being lodged at Google over its Assistant and Amazon over its Alexa. Amazon earlier this month started allowing users to opt out of human review of Alexa recordings, while Google, like Apple, paused human review of Assistant audio. Apple says it will restart its audio review program with the release of a software update this fall.