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Anonymized Siri Voice Clips Stored by Apple for Up to Two Years

Rocketman said:
It doesn't concern me what Apple does with it. It concerns me that the Government sees it as a resource for enforcement purposes. I should have the right to my papers and things. That includes assets like recordings of course.

Rocketman
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Absolutely agree with you. Still, I don't see any indication that it is being used for that purpose, or even that it could be. Most people aren't (or shouldn't be) using Siri for anything particularly secretive. Beyond that, the fact that it is no longer traceable to a single person essentially makes it useless. I have nothing to hide, but I still care ;)
 
WHO CARES?

Jesus...people will complain about the stupidest crap.

Oh no! Apple has your voice recordings! Just like the government has video of you, google has everything about your life, banks have all your financial information, universities know everything about you, and every piece of important information about you is somewhere online and can be accessed.

Get over yourselves. This is 2013. Privacy is gone. Get used to it
 
haha who is more worried about privacy or the fact that they have asked for some of the oddest stuff?

I have asked Siri to look for pictures of every body part just because its fun.


"Siri find me pictures of old man balls"

"Siri find me pictures of some boobs"

then things like

"Siri where do I hide a body?"

"Siri would you have sex with me?"


I don't think I have ever used Siri for a normal thing.
 
What's the big deal? Me personally clearly understands that voice command/recognition is the future. And in mass -- Apple was first to market it.. I'm happy that I understood my data would contribute to this BETA product... Whine whine whine... Imagine what Googles got on all of us... I'd cry about that..
 
I find a lot of the responses of "who cares" interesting. One of the biggest reasons I hear for people not wanting to use android on these forums is the fact that google collects random data on their users. So really, which is it. Do people care, or do they not? I realize it isn't necessarily the same persons on either side of the coin, but still. It's an interesting phenomenon.
 
lordofthereef said:
I find a lot of the responses of "who cares" interesting. One of the biggest reasons I hear for people not wanting to use android on these forums is the fact that google collects random data on their users. So really, which is it. Do people care, or do they not? I realize it isn't necessarily the same persons on either side of the coin, but still. It's an interesting phenomenon.
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They don't care when the company that descended from the heavens known as Apple does it.
 
err404 said:
Most of what what you are worried about is already available in the cloud (they already host some of your email and your entire device iCloud backup). Besides, storing a raw voice clip with no identifier to you is not an efficient way to snoop on somebody. If they reverse/break the unique identifier to ID you, they would be liable of breaking the agreement of anonymized data. After 6 months there isn't even a key to link clips to the same user. If they didn't care about the agreement, the would just grab your SMS, emails and calendar directly.
There needs to be a balance of allowing companies to collect research data, and protecting users. Given the nature of voice recognition services, this seems to be a fair arrangement.
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I agree. I'm just saying the balance goes both ways. Readers on this site would do well to remember that apple can do wrong.
 
If they collect and store the data, that is a huge privacy issue. It may appear that most "discussions" with Siri are unimportant if recorded, however, that's just a naive perception. Technology exists and is being used every day to profile people based on their tweets, Facebook posts, Google searches, etc. Siri recordings add another level of granularity and finesse to profiling. Every one of those companies states that the data is collected and then either discarded or "disassociated" and somehow, in some mysterious ways, all or most of that data lands in the hands of those that need to build a profile of a person.

If the data is collected and stored it becomes a very attractive asset to some people. Apple can't and will not guarantee absolute safety of that data. If so, it should not be stored. Those of us who are concerned about our privacy, should refrain from using Siri.
 
I hope they use the data to improve their voice recognition in Siri so that it stops thinking I said "Glenadin umbrella tomorrow." when I asked "Will I need an umbrella tomorrow?"
 
Google Now stores your searches for two years - OUTRAGE

Siri stores your searches for two years - meh
 
Its being used as test data. Any connection between the voice and to identify the source person is removed.

Every software company retains real data for future development / enhancing the products.

Nothing to see here.
 
Millah said:
So, all you guys complain about Siris accuracy and request times, right? Well, here ya go. You shouldn't have any problem with this.

You want to bitch and moan about how "bad" Siri is, and then you want to bitch and moan about the things that are necessary for Apple to improve Siri.

And I doubt Apple is alone in this. Use any other service involving voice of any kind, and you're likely to see similar things. How else are they going to improve it?
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Eh, dragon dictation on the computer didn't need an internet connection and it has great accuracy (way back in the `90's). I would rather have my phone process what I say, maybe that is something Apple will include in iOS 8.

What I find more interesting is Apple can track what was said back to a user for six months. So it isn't anonymous until that six month period is up.
 
Stella said:
Its being used as test data. Any connection between the voice and to identify the source person is removed.

Every software company retains data for future development.

Nothing to see here.
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The problem is that very few here understand this, (or simply how crowdsourcing works, look at your GPS and tell me that this Siri data phenomena is new) and even fewer in the media bother to do the five minutes of googling required to educate themselves before furthering the story.
 
diamond.g said:
Eh, dragon dictation on the computer didn't need an internet connection and it has great accuracy (way back in the `90's). I would rather have my phone process what I say, maybe that is something Apple will include in iOS 8.

What I find more interesting is Apple can track what was said back to a user for six months. So it isn't anonymous until that six month period is up.
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Yes, as long by "track what was said back to a user" you meant apple can track data point H1x00Xf11. It's an anonymized data point, nothing more. Just like apple's ad tracker service which actually increases user privacy by giving just an anonymized identifier instead of something like a device id number which can be tracked. They don't and can't track it down to John H. Somebody.
 
sillypooh said:
So what?

Is there any value, privacy-wise, to "honey, I will be late"?
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No more or less value than typing in "nearest golf course" into Google.

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rtomyj said:
Why is Apple always on the news for privacy when other companies (Google) have shadier dealings and rarely get called ou?t :-/
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Probably because those "shady dealings" are a load of crap made up with no facts. Google is no 'worse' with user privacy than Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, IBM, Intel, Twitter, Facebook, <insert any big tech company here>.
 
TheAppleFairy said:
Wish there was a place I could hear these random recordings. Might be a few good laughs in there.
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That's probably what Siri Engineers do for kicks. :)

I bet the Google Now team retains stuff too.

It would make for a good test suite to see if you can improve Siri accuracy.
 
diamond.g said:
Eh, dragon dictation on the computer didn't need an internet connection and it has great accuracy (way back in the `90's). I would rather have my phone process what I say, maybe that is something Apple will include in iOS 8.

What I find more interesting is Apple can track what was said back to a user for six months. So it isn't anonymous until that six month period is up.
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Keep in mind, this is Apples first attempt at something like this. Nuance has been doing this for decades, as you just said. And dictation is MUCH different from a assistant service like Siri which attempts to understand natural speech and create an action based on that speech, which makes it much more important for Apple to collect data based on how users use the product to tune Siris understanding of our natural speech.

And yes its anonymous. They create anonymous profiles per device that isn't associated to your actual physical identity or even your iTunes account. Didn't you read the article? Its not like Apple can say "John Jacob Smith IV from Louisville KY living at 333 Livington Rd asked Siri for directions to Florida." Lol thats not how it works.
 
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