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

[ReneR]

as shown again and again Apple is not much better with privacy than Google, just more colourful advertising.
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This is ridiculous. Siri is already by far the worst assistant out there, without grading it will never improve and be competitive. They should have just put an opt out (and give to people to opt out the current Siri, keeping the one improved by grading to those who opt in).

when it comes to privacy and user data everything should be an OPT IN. Why should regular Joe & Jane users case that heir data and life is send somewhere. Better yet: compensate the users OPT'ing IN, so they actually benefit from that, too, ..! :-/ And how can you even propose to only deliver improved versions to people who opt in? The product was expensive, the company should develop it, not the users, .. it's not like it's free and you know you pay with your data like at Google to start with, ..!

 

[apolloa]

Oh thank you for your hard work. It’s often unappreciated, isn’t it. Do you publish a newsletter we can subscribe to?

Yes I do actually, it’s called ‘welcome to my ignore list’

 

[btrach144]

Lost a lot of respect for Apple after this revelation. They act all high and mighty but in reality, they disrespect our privacy in some of the same concerning ways as Google. Yikes!

 

[zv470]

It is anonymous I don’t really care. I want Siri to become more accurate.

 

[Bestevaer]

It is anonymous I don’t really care. I want Siri to become more accurate.

I keep posting it. Since some people on this forum do not read.

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-hear-confidential-details-on-siri-recordings

Your data which is send to contractors is not anonymous!

 

[iPhysicist]

Where does it say that in the privacy policy?

But keep moving the goalposts....

Your Meme—ing says your more into mememememememe than actual discourse. So... annoying.

 

[Bestevaer]

Your Meme—ing says your more into mememememememe than actual discourse. So... annoying.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Some people don't read. So a picture or a gif should make the message clear

 

[dumastudetto]

I do not know if you are sarcastic or not.

But in this case your data is not anonymized.
Check the article of the guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-hear-confidential-details-on-siri-recordings

In my view, it is anonymised. My expectations were met by all aspects of the so-called story. There were no surprises.

 

[manu chao]

So long as it is actually anonymized, I don't really care

One thing is that it may not be 100% anonymised, at least not all of it. Let's say you invoke Siri with "Hey Siri, call Amy" but the voice recognition part hears this as "Hey Siri, call Ani" and it answers "I'm sorry, there is nobody called Ani in your contacts". That failure by Siri to carry out the task might lead to it being flagged for human review. Now while not strictly necessary, for the human to see at least part of the contacts list can be helpful in figuring out that the user meant to say "Amy".

Human review in this case could work by the reviewer simply typing in whatever she or he thinks is hearing and for the system to merely return a yes/no whether that name is in the address book would in most cases work as well. But there are almost certainly more complex Siri queries where for the human reviewer to know some context about the user can be more essential in figuring out what the user meant to ask Siri.

More generally, even if the review system doesn't give the reviewer any information about the user, the user might mention names, places, events during the (accidental) recording snippets sent to Apple that can be very revealing. Now, the review system could be set up to detect when (too much) personal information is recorded and don't send those snippets to a human or redact part of it. But if somebody is trying to use Siri to add a contact to their address book and Siri fails at least partly, to try to figure out why it failed, a human reviewer must listen to somebody dictating an address. The review system could also be set up to ensure that recordings from the same user isn't sent to same reviewer more than once, limiting whatever an individual human reviewer can know about an individual user. One might go so far as to split up review tasks among different teams of reviewers to avoid reviewers in a given team combining information about users during their coffee break.

But ultimately, the option for users to completely opt out of human review is indispensable to ensure that those who care a lot about their privacy can be fully reassured.

 

[c0ppo]

What happens on your iPhone, goes to our contractors.

 

[antonis]

• So, we learn about this only after it is accidentally revealed from a source outside apple.
• It seems that it was running for some time without the end-users know it.
• It will now be fixed, because "apple respects privacy"...as soon as they get caught.
• Users will automatically opted-in unless they choose to opt-out, meaning most users will not even know it is there, and keep themselves "opted-in".

I'm so mad with Google right now. No, I mean apple. No Google. Apple... wait ! What's the difference again ?

 

[Never mind]

Stuff like this should be Opt In not Opt Out.

yes sir 100%. I think all (Google, etc) should have a opt in and not to opt out.

 

[manu chao]

You must be confused about how that works. A low power local circuit listens for the activation word, and only then activates the rest of the system. This has been talked about again and again.

Sure, 'only then', but that 'only then' can happen almost randomly whenever the system thinks it has heard the activation word. So, nobody is listening in constantly, but somebody could be listening in at any moment in time for a short time span.
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That’s a you problem.

I'm not sure what you mean with this.

 

[Abazigal]

I posted this in an earlier thread, and thought I would raise it again.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...g-to-you-on-alexa-a-global-team-reviews-audio

What this guardian article raised is nothing new. An earlier article by Bloomberg mentioned the exact same thing. Why is it that nobody cared a hoot back then, yet everyone is crying bloody murder now?

 

[manu chao]

• So, we learn about this only after it is accidentally revealed from a source outside apple.
• It seems that it was running for some time without the end-users know it.
• It will now be fixed, because "apple respects privacy"...as soon as they get caught.
• Users will automatically opted-in unless they choose to opt-out, meaning most users will not even know it is there, and keep themselves "opted-in".

I'm so mad with Google right now. No, I mean apple. No Google. Apple... wait ! What's the difference again ?

Have Google or Amazon suspended human review in the past and promised an opt-out option?
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Lost a lot of respect for Apple after this revelation. They act all high and mighty but in reality, they disrespect our privacy in some of the same concerning ways as Google. Yikes!

So what exactly should they have done? Have no human reviewers and if Siri doesn't understand a user let that be the users problem (she or he should try to speak more clearly or rephrase their query in a way that Siri is already programmed to understand)?

 

[Kabeyun]

I’d let them put an employee in my house if it helped make Siri any smarter.

 

[DanielCoffey]

I am actually quite pleased that Apple have a Siri improvement team. I read books out loud for my disabled wife and occasionally get an accidental activation from Siri where she didn't clearly understand my diction. I suspect words such as "recently" and "basically" in certain accents may trigger a wake up so need to be tuned. On one occasion I was proof-reading a text message that I was about to send that started with "Hi, Sarah..." and Siri of course woke up for that.

As for her accuracy, for basic stuff like playlist selection I find Siri is very good indeed. I admit I have renamed some playlists to be easier to recognise phonetically ("Barquhey" was renamed to "Bar Way" for better results).

 

[Brady9991]

How else are they supposed to improve Siri... as long as its anonymous I don't care

 

[1bcoolrob]

You should be able to opt out of Siri and change it for Alexa assist

 

[makitango]

Why does it need opt-out if it‘s suspended anyway?

 

[BornAgainMac]

Imagine it being a two way "live" interaction with the contractors though. You say something like "Play my favorite music" and it starts playing and you say "That isn't it." Then a random contractor comes in and says "Sir, what music did you want Siri to play then?"

 

[H2SO4]

Just because you took their policy one way doesn't mean the average joe did too. Apple is a generally transparent and upfront company, ESPECIALLY when it comes to privacy. They should have been clearer that they listen to recordings, even if they did "nothing wrong."

This is not unlike throttle-gate. Basically do something sort of shady, get caught, have an opt out option, then get sued.

Not even close.
When it comes to privacy there are some things you should assume.
Are you telling me not enough people thought it was a good idea to even mention human oversight in passing?
As a, “let’s be sure our users are aware even if they might be able to work it out”, measure.
No. They kept it quiet and got caught.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Why does it need opt-out if it‘s suspended anyway?

Suspended doesn't mean cancelled. They will check procedures, add an option out, and then start it again. Likely within a week.

 

[uajafd]

Not good enough. Such things must be opt-in, not opt-out. Far too often companies think that if somehow I bought a doohickey from them, not only do they get my money, but implicitly my blood, my soul, and my firstborn too.

 

[Tubamajuba]

Hmm probably best that your not me, I am capable of criticising Apple and can see the hypocrisy of it all..

The fact that all you ever seem to do in these forums is criticize Apple makes you the boy who cried wolf. In fairness, a broken clock is right twice a day...