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Tech

Apple apologizes for letting contractors eavesdrop on Siri’s sex recordings

By
Nicolas Vega
Published Aug. 28, 2019
Updated Aug. 28, 2019, 5:11 p.m. ET

Sorry we’ve been eavesdropping on your sex life.

Apple on Wednesday apologized to its users for employing third-party contractors to listen to audio recordings picked up by its Siri voice assistant, including when the voice assistant program was accidentally triggered by muffled background noise.

The practice — in which Apple had contractors listened to recordings to grade Siri’s performance — made waves after a whistleblower said the voice assistant routinely recorded people having sex, as well as making drug deals and discussing confidential medical information.

“We realize we haven’t been fully living up to our high ideals, and for that we apologize,” Apple said Wednesday.

Apple suspended the recordings after the whistleblower, a former Apple contractor, exposed Apple’s eavesdropping practice to The Guardian newspaper in June.

“The sound of a zip, Siri often hears as a trigger,” the contractor said.

Sometimes, “you can definitely hear a doctor and patient, talking about the medical history of the patient. Or you’d hear someone, maybe with car engine background noise – you can’t say definitely, but it’s a drug deal … you can definitely hear it happening. And you’d hear, like, people engaging in sexual acts that are accidentally recorded on the pod or the watch,” the Guardian reported.

The iPhone maker says it will start the Siri grading program up again under new guidelines that will allow users to opt in to the program. It will not keep Siri audio recordings for grading Siri without users’ permission, it said.

Apple will also only allow its own employees to review the audio recordings — not third-party contractors. It also pledged to work to delete “any recording which is determined to be an inadvertent trigger of Siri.”

“We hope that many people will choose to help Siri get better, knowing that Apple respects their data and has strong privacy controls in place,” the company said. “Those who choose to participate will be able to opt out at any time.”