Q: Turn off Siri & Siri Suggestions

[Ursadorable]

I had a question with regards to Siri and more specifically Siri Suggstions & Privacy.

In the system prefs for Siri, if you turn off Ask Siri, does Siri still make suggestions or does it obey Ask Siri being turned off?

Seems a rather huge privacy issue having Siri watching everything on your computer, and having it defaulted on is rather offensive. It's something I'd expect Microsoft to do (*cough* CoPilot).

 

[zevrix]

I had a question with regards to Siri and more specifically Siri Suggstions & Privacy.

In the system prefs for Siri, if you turn off Ask Siri, does Siri still make suggestions or does it obey Ask Siri being turned off?

Seems a rather huge privacy issue having Siri watching everything on your computer, and having it defaulted on is rather offensive. It's something I'd expect Microsoft to do (*cough* CoPilot).

I always have Ask Siri turned off, which makes Siri totally disabled, as far as I understand. If Siri still does something covertly then that sure would be some kind of violation but I doubt it happens. If you ever find out that this violation does happen, please let the world know.

 

[bogdanw]

There are several processes related to Siri (siriknowledged, knowledge-agent, knowledgeconstructiond). You can check in the Activity Monitor app if they are running.
Apple Support - View information about Mac processes in Activity Monitor
https://support.apple.com/guide/activity-monitor/actmntr1001/mac

With SIP disabled, they can be permanently disabled https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/what-is-knowledgeconstructiond.2370168/

 

[Ursadorable]

I always have Ask Siri turned off, which makes Siri totally disabled, as far as I understand. If Siri still does something covertly then that sure would be some kind of violation but I doubt it happens. If you ever find out that this violation does happen, please let the world know.

That's what I'm trying to figure. I too also have Ask Siri turned off. But I can't confirm that Siri Suggestions shuts down as well. I should NOT have to go into Siri Suggestions & Privacy and turn each option off as well. But there's no indication that turning off Ask Siri, also disables Siri Suggestions. This is not clearly laid out. And if turning off Ask Siri does not also disable Siri Suggestions, then that is a huge security and privacy issue that needs to be addressed.

 

[Ursadorable]

As a followup, I heard back from Apple Live Support on this matter.

To answer your questions, disable Ask Siri does not disable Siri suggestions. As it relates to your privacy concern, to learn more about how Apple protects your information and lets you choose what you share, click Siri Suggestions & Privacy, then click About Siri & Privacy. You can also customize Siri Suggestions by doing the following:


1 System Settings, then click Siri & Spotlight in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)

2 On the right, click Siri Suggestions & Privacy.

3 Select apps in the list to turn “Show Siri Suggestions in [app]” or “Learn from this application” on or off.

 

[Ursadorable]

Just to confirm and clarify my observations.

You can turn off Ask Siri, however it only disables Siri listening. Siri will still run in the background harvesting data from your applications. You can turn those off individually, however new apps that you install will appear by default turned on. So unless you religiously keep an eye on Siri's system preferences, Apple will continue to abuse your privacy.

To me this is unacceptable behavior from a company who promotes their superior privacy and security, and sadly makes them no better than Microsoft when it comes to respecting users.

I've left feedback through Apple's website that there needs to be a way to completely disable Siri, or at minimum, have a on/off for both Ask Siri, and Siri Suggestions. Simply having a slider for every app is unacceptable as new apps can be added to the permissions without informing the user, and they default to ON status.

 

[zevrix]

Just to confirm and clarify my observations.

You can turn off Ask Siri, however it only disables Siri listening. Siri will still run in the background harvesting data from your applications.

Ah interesting, thanks! I never knew about these Siri Suggestions. And yes it's ridiculous that you have to turn it off for each app. I just left the Suggestions as is, don't have patience to turn it off for each app, plus I guess I don't care what it does anyway. I also noticed that Siri Suggestions doesn't interact with all apps but mostly a selected group of apps, mostly some Apple built-in apps that I don't use anyway.

 

[Lioness~]

Just to confirm and clarify my observations.

You can turn off Ask Siri, however it only disables Siri listening. Siri will still run in the background harvesting data from your applications. You can turn those off individually, however new apps that you install will appear by default turned on. So unless you religiously keep an eye on Siri's system preferences, Apple will continue to abuse your privacy.

To me this is unacceptable behavior from a company who promotes their superior privacy and security, and sadly makes them no better than Microsoft when it comes to respecting users.

I've left feedback through Apple's website that there needs to be a way to completely disable Siri, or at minimum, have a on/off for both Ask Siri, and Siri Suggestions. Simply having a slider for every app is unacceptable as new apps can be added to the permissions without informing the user, and they default to ON status.

Agree!

I love most of Apple's stuff, but I can't even express, without getting reported for bad language, how much I dislike anything and everything that is about Siri! I even had a post deleted some time ago that was about Siri. Please MR, you don't have to take my dislike of Siri personal.

I've turned Siri off everywhere I can on my devices, but on strange occasions either Siri voices something totally irrelevant on my HomePod mini's, or some music that doesn't come from my library/devices starts to play, anyway.
It's very disturbing as I meditate on the place where my HomePod mini's are located.

I don't touch or get close to my bigger HomePods so easily as they are standing on a bookshelf high up.
It has happened that Siri popped out some irrelevance through them too, and even on my phone as well.

I probably will continue to buy general Apple devices if the quality otherwise stays intact. But I will never buy any HomePod mini's again - probably not any more of the bigger HomePods either.

It's all because of this Siri disturbance, all of it!

I've had 2 sets of 2 different Creative Speakers since a long time ago. I can still use them because of the 2 Expresses I have. Thanks for that Apple!

I will probably buy a few more modern Creative speakers, or something else, instead of Apple's speaker systems, to replace the mini's. They do have bluetooth today.
The big HomePods have at least very good sound quality.