In the early part of August, social network outfit Facebook gave its 1.3 billion users the prefect cause to delete their accounts. Recently, Apple has made the same move for its more than 1 billion iPad and iPhone users all over the world. A new report surfaced today giving us the picture of what is really going on.
In July, The Guardian reported that the Cupertino-based tech titan was hiring contractors to listen to and rate its voice assistant's recordings and regularly heard delicate information from iPad and iPhone users. This includes drug deals, medical information, and even recordings of couples having intercourse. But, recently, the Irish Examiner reveals more details about this Siri recordings issue.
According to the report, contractors located in Cork in Ireland were expected to produce over 1,000 recordings from Apple's voice assistant Siri from each shift before the Cupertino-based tech titan suspended the practice in July. The report claims that the details came from an employee whose contract was recently terminated. More than 300 employees of the contractor Globetech were let go after the report from The Guadian surfaced which put into context the 1,000 recordings per shift.
The Examiner reveals that according to the employee most of the Apple users who were heard have Australian, UK, or Canadian accents. There was also a team focused on users with European languages. Additionally, Globetech employees are required to transcribe and rate the records to see how Siri was activated and whether the query was successfully dealt with.
Further, the employee explains that the Siri recordings they listened to were anonymized and were usually brief. Occasionally, however, the employee discloses that they would hear snippets of conversations or personal information. While the employee claims that he/she understood why Apple was doing it, he/she also understands why people would feel like their privacy was violated because the company did not inform the public about this.
Apple is not alone in doing this practice. Google, Facebook, and Amazon have all revealed similar practices, although the Cupertino-based tech giant claims that it is the only tech company that people can trust. It also states on its privacy page that it believes that privacy is a fundamental right. The Irish Examiner also reveals that the company released a statement saying that it is committed to customer privacy and stopped Siri grading while it conducts a comprehensive review of its processes.
There are millions of iPhone and iPad users all over the world, and most likely, they will begin to conduct their own thorough reviews. However, instead of grading Siri, they will start rating now how they feel about this practice of the iPhone maker.
