Last month, we learned that requests made by users ofSirietGoogle Assistantwere listened to and analyzed by employees of companies working on behalf of Apple and Google respectively.
Amazon was not doing any better in terms of respect for privacy, admitting at the same timestore infinitelyall requests made to its Alexa voice assistant, without an anonymization process.
In the case of Siri, this story was more surprising than for its competitors, given the fact that the Cupertino company regularly says it is very attentive to respecting the privacy of its users.
The revelations about listening to Siri requests then have the potential to greatly undermine this image of defender of privacy.
Apple takes the lead
The Californian company therefore reacted quickly to correct the situation. It recently said it had blocked all of its programs from listening to Siri queries by humans, although it said the eavesdropping only affected about 1% of global queries.
She added that this stop remains temporary. It would in fact be working on an iOS update including a new functionality allowing the user to choose whether to participate in the improvement of Siri or not. This would actually involve accepting that some of its requests be heard by humans at Apple, or not.
In the meantime, know that it is already possible to do the same, i.e. prevent Siri from sharing your requests. See our tutorial on the subject here:how to stop apple from listening to your siri requests.
Google, forced to stop its eavesdropping
As for Google, you should know, as our colleagues from Bloomberg point out, that the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Hamburg, Germany, asked the Mountain View giant to stop listening to requests for Google Assistant in Europe, due to non-compliance with the European regulation for the protection of private data (GDPR).
It is therefore not so surprising to see Tim Cook's company take the lead in stopping its listening programs on its own.
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By : Keleops AG
Editor-in-chief for iPhon.fr. Pierre is like Indiana Jones, looking for the lost iOS trick. Also a long-time Mac user, Apple devices hold no secrets for him. Contact: pierre[a]iphon.fr.
