TechCrunch, which broke the news, said Apple plans to issue a software update to seek users’ consent before letting them participate in the product improvement program. “We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy,” the company said to the outlet. “While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally. Additionally, as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading.” In a similar development, Google said it will voluntarily halt listening in and transcribing Google Assistant recordings for three months in the EU, according to German data regulators. Last week, The Guardian reported how Siri voice snippets containing “medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex” are being heard by contractors working for the company around the world. Although Apple said less than one percent of daily requests are being analyzed to improve Siri and dictation, the contractor said “they were motivated to go public about their job because of their fears that such information could be misused.” The Cupertino-based tech giant currently provides no way to know which of your Siri recordings may have been saved for review by employees. This is something users should have explicit control over, but instead it’s buried deep inside ambiguous, long and obtuse legalese. Apple’s own terms of service document says pseudonymized Siri requests could be used for quality control. But it stops short of explicitly stating that the work is actually undertaken by humans. What’s more, the company’s response that it’ll provide an opt-out for grading process effectively means your voice snippets — albeit anonymized — could still potentially wind up on its servers to improve Siri. Google, mid-July, acknowledged voice snippets from the Assistant — leaked to the Belgian news outlet VRT News — revealed sensitive information such as medical conditions and customer addresses. It’s an industry-wide practice to collect voice recordings to improve speech recognition algorithms, as it’s very much an evolving technology and a human element, however creepy, is essential to train the software to understand people better and to develop new features, such as providing product recommendations based on their interactions. But seeking informed consent from users goes a long way towards addressing privacy concerns, not to mention ensuring compliance with EU GDPR requirements. The suspensions come amid increased regulatory scrutiny of big tech’s business models, forcing them to be more transparent about their data collection, processing, and sharing practices. If anything, the recent controversies surrounding voice assistants merely scratch the surface of how a world full of always-on microphones can be a privacy nightmare. Apple has long positioned itself as a paragon of privacy in hopes to differentiate from its data-hungry rivals. But the company needs to send a clear signal about its privacy guarantees, and instill accountability and trust as it increasingly shifts to services for revenue and growth.
