Apple Keeps Your Siri Data For Two Years
Apple has revealed that it holds on to voice data that users submit to Siri for up to two years.
Siri keeps your personalized data collected and stored on its servers whenever you pick up your iPhone and ask her a question. The Cupertino firm also assured customers that the files it retains become disassociated from the user after six months, or if they deactivate the personal assistant.
Responding to questions raised by the American Civil Liberties Union yesterday, Apple on Friday dispatched its spokeswoman Trudy Muller who explained to Wired the firm’s data retention policy governing Siri.
Apple may keep anonymized Siri data for up to two years. If a user turns Siri off, both identifiers are deleted immediately along with any associated data.
Based on the information Muller provided, Wired’s Robert McMillan explains exactly what happens when you use Siri:
Whenever you speak into Apple’s voice activated personal digital assistant, it ships it off to Apple’s data farm for analysis. Apple generates a random numbers to represent the user and it associates the voice files with that number. This number — not your Apple user ID or email address — represents you as far as Siri’s back-end voice analysis system is concerned.
Citing the Apple spokeswoman, the site reveals that the company makes sure the data is anonymized. Apple “only collects the Siri voice clips in order to improve Siri itself,” it says.
However, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who had previously raised privacy questions about Siri says Apple should take additional steps to protect its users’ privacy.
According to Nicole Ozer, “There is no good reason for Apple to not include information about privacy practices on their Siri FAQ page.”
[Wired]
