Should it come as any surprise? And yet the details are shocking and outrageous. A whistleblower working for Apple has revealed to The Guardian that its popular voice activated spying device helpful virtual assistant Siri, now in millions of households, “regularly” records people having sex, and captures other “countless” invasive moments which it promptly sends to Apple contractors for their listening pleasure “quality control”:
Apple contractors regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex, as part of their job providing quality control, or “grading”, the company’s Siri voice assistant, the Guardian has learned.
We’ve long pointed out that according to Amazon’s Alexa terms of use, the company collects and stores most of what you say to Alexa (or perhaps what you groan) – including the geolocation of the product along with your voice instructions.
However, what’s not disclosed or at least not well known up to this point is that a “small proportion” of all Siri recordings of what consumers thought were private settings are actually forwarded to Apple contractors around the world, according to the new report. Supposedly this is to ensure Siri is responding properly and can continue to distinguish dictation. Apple says, according to The Guardian, the data “is used to help Siri and dictation… understand you better and recognise what you say”.
But an anonymous current company insider and whistleblower told The Guardian: “There have been countless instances of recordings featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on. These recordings are accompanied by user data showing location, contact details, and app data.” – READ MORE
