Apple Suspends Program That Lets Employees Listen to Siri Recordings for Quality Control, Opt Out Option Coming

Apple is suspending a Siri program that allows employees to listen to ‌Siri‌ recordings for quality control purposes, reports TechCrunch.

Apple is going to review the process that's currently used, where workers listen to anonymized ‌Siri‌ recordings to determine whether ‌Siri‌ is hearing questions correctly or being activated accidentally.

Apple in the future also plans to release a software update that will let ‌Siri‌ users opt out of having their ‌Siri‌ queries included in this evaluation process, called grading.

"We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy," Apple said in a statement to TechCrunch. "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."

The decision to suspend the program and offer an opt-out option comes following a report from The Guardian that shared details gleaned from one of the contractors working on evaluating ‌Siri‌ queries.

The employee expressed concern with Apple's lack of disclosure about the human oversight and said that contractors who work on the program have overhead confidential medical information, drug deals, recordings of couples having sex, and other private details from accidental ‌Siri‌ activations.

When The Guardian report came out, Apple confirmed that a small number of anonymized ‌Siri‌ requests are analyzed for the purpose of improving ‌Siri‌ and dictation. While Apple anonymizes ‌Siri‌ data that's evaluated for quality control and ‌Siri‌ improvement, its current privacy policy and security documents do not explicitly mention human oversight.