Apple has always put the privacy of its users first, but it faced severe backlash recently after a report came out stating some employees regularly heard private and confidential details recorded by Siri as a part of a grading program. The iPhone-maker shut down the Siri grading program and now it has taken a major step in the direction of restoring its users' faith.
Apple has introduced an important change in the privacy settings of iOS-powered devices, allowing iPhone and iPad users to opt-out of sharing audio recordings and added the ability to delete their Siri and Dictation history. This is a major step in the right direction for Apple, which now puts users back in control of their data.
The new privacy setting in iPhones is a part of iOS 13.2 beta update. According to MacRumors, a splash screen will inform users of the new opt-out feature while installing iOS 13.2 beta.
"Help Improve Siri and Dictation by allowing Apple to store and review audio of your Siri and Dictation interactions on this iPhone and on any connected Apple Watch or HomePod. You can change this later in the settings for each device. This data is not associated with your Apple ID, and will only be stored for a limited period," the message reads.
In order to delete the Siri recordings, users must head to the Settings menu of the Siri section. "Delete Siri & Dictation interactions currently associated with this iPhone from Apple servers. Data that has been sampled to help improve Siri and Dictation is no longer associated with this iPhone and will not be deleted," the message clearly states before users hit the "Delete Siri & Dictation History" button.
In addition to these efforts, Apple said that it will minimize the amount of data its human reviewers can access to improve the Siri responses. While the actual grading practice is pretty common among digital voice assistant providers, Siri-rivals Google Assistant and Alexa allow users to opt-out of some uses of their recordings. Apple has finally caught up and took some stringent actions.
