Apple stops Siri’s program which listened to user’s conversation

After receiving backlash from the community, Apple has banned the Siri quality improvement program which listened to the user’s conversations with the assistant.

Earlier last week, it was reported that the Siri program which let contractors listen to user’s interaction with the voice assistant for grading their experience, also gave them access to user’s private conversations. An Apple contractor later confirmed to the media that there had occurred numerous occasions when they came across supposedly private conversations. These conversations were possibly recorded when Siri was activated by a mistake.

The Siri grading program was built by Apple to improve the performance of the voice assistant by grading the answers provided by the assistant to the user’s queries by actually accessing the data.

The news which was first published by The Guardian stirred a privacy conversation regarding the program. The fact which intrigued the privacy enthusiasts was that the voice recordings also contained details like the location and other app data which made the private conversations more vulnerable.

Apple yesterday issued a statement on said matter mentioning that it was conducting a thorough review of the matter and that it was suspending the service globally till then. The company also mentioned that in a software update, which would be rolled out in future, the user’s would get the option to opt-out of the grading program on their will.

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