Apple’s global outsourcers often hear consumer privacy information from Siri, involving medical information, drug deals, sensitive business transactions, and people’s private recordings.

Editor’s note: This article is from Tencent Technology, review: Cheng Hao.

Recently, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft have rushed to hire manual auditors to audit, evaluate, score, or transcribe the recordings of consumers using voice assistants. This violation of personal privacy has caused public outcry. After the media reports were exposed, all companies have stopped the manual review business. Recently, the media in Europe and Ireland interviewed former employees and exposed how some outsourcers listened to some of the insider recordings of Apple Siri users.

According to foreign media reports, an employee in the Cork area of ​​Ireland suddenly terminated the contract with Apple’s Siri department this week. He said that before Apple suspended the service last month, it was expected that Cork’s outsourcer employees would listen to more than 1,000 Siri recordings per shift.

According to Irish media, employees in the Cork area were hired by outsourcing companies to conduct manual audits of Siri recordings and to “score” the recordings.

There was a news that the third-party outsourcers around the world had conducted manual auditing on behalf of the technology giant without the knowledge of Apple users.

The staff then transcribes and “scores” these recordings based on a number of different factors. These factors include whether the activation of the Siri Voice Assistant is accidental, or whether the voice assistant is able to respond to the consumer’s query.

This employee said that the details of each user of Siri are anonymous (not tied to the Apple account). “Mainly users who speak Canadian, Australian or British accents, and a smaller team who handles European language users.”

This employee added that they also listened to a small number of Irish users’ recordings.

“I understand why companies do this, but I understand why people think this is a violation of personal privacy because they don’t tell others. I think the lack of consumer consent is the problem.”

Data analysts at Global Technology Inc., headquartered in Cork Airport Business Park, Ireland, were told this week that their work at the company has ended.

After the details of the Siri recordings being heard, Apple suspended the transcription and scoring of Siri recordings last month; documents seen by Irish listeners confirmed that the company has now completed such work.

Someone is worried,Cork has more than 300 outsourcers named Apple’s transcription and scoring project being fired this week; however, Global Technology and Apple declined to comment on how many employees were affected or the nature of their work.

A staff member who was fired after Apple made this decision told the Irish media: “We must sign a confidentiality agreement at the outset, which means we can’t talk in detail about what we did. We can’t say we are Apple. Work.”

This former employee said that Global Technology’s employees would listen to Siri’s more than 1,000 recordings every class. “These recordings are only a few seconds long. Occasionally we hear personal data or conversations, but most of the time they are Siri’s instructions.”

According to the employee, “My colleagues are mostly young people from Cork who don’t have jobs right now. This includes dozens of people from Canada, Australia and continental Europe.”

This Tuesday, a letter sent to employees by Global Technology revealed that Apple notified the company on Saturday that it would stop all Siri user recording transcription and speech scoring: “So, Universal Technology will no longer provide these for Apple. Service.”

The employees were also told that, despite the contract, in this case, the company did not need to provide them with any notice of dismissal, but it was a kind expression. It is understood that this goodwill includes a week’s salary and compensation for cash for unused holiday allowances.

Last month, an informant told British media that Apple’s global outsourcers often heard consumer privacy information from Siri, involving medical information, drug deals, sensitive business transactions, and recordings of people making love.

Apple Siri started the recording in an unexpected situation, which also caused a “tapping” user’s doubts.

After that, the Global Technology Office at Cork has undergone a reorganization to prohibit employees from carrying their personal mobile phones at work.

Global Technology CEO Kevin Kelly said: “This is a difficult situation for all concerned. The nature of our business means that most of our employee contracts are fixed customers, and Customer needs are tied to the project life cycle. We are committed to supporting our employees through possible rework opportunities where possible.”

A spokesperson for Apple said: “We believe that everyone deserves the dignity and respect they deserve, including our own employees and our suppliers in Ireland and around the world. Apple is committed to protecting user privacy. And decided to suspend the Siri service rating, and we are conducting a thorough investigation

. We are working closely with our partners to ensure that our suppliers, their employees and our customers around the world get the best results.

In addition to Apple, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Microsoft products are also exploding.A message was manually heard to listen to the user’s recording.

It is well known that in the past few years, in the context of the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, voice assistants have become more and more mature, and they have entered people through smart phones, TV remote controls, smart speakers, and even cars. in life. In the past, people thought that they were communicating with machines or computers, so they leaked some private information during the communication with the voice assistant. Today, these recordings are manually heard by others and surprise consumers.

The purpose of the major vendors hiring outsourcers to listen to the recordings is to improve the service and improve the IQ of the voice assistant (whether it is possible to understand the question and the accuracy of the answer). Recently, a US venture capital firm’s evaluation report showed that among the three major voice assistants, Google IQ is the highest, and it can answer 90% of users’ questions. In contrast, Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri are relatively backward and can answer 80% of users. Ask a question.

In addition to manual auditing, Apple has paid more and more attention to artificial intelligence technology research and development in recent years. It has set up an artificial intelligence R&D center in Seattle, USA. An important mission of these researchers is to improve Siri’s IQ level. (Tencent Technology Review / Cheng Hao)