Data | Apple axes workers hired to 'eavesdrop' on Siri users

With the advent of GDPR and rising speculation over the privacy policies of companies like Huawei and Amazon – coupled with the development of ‘always listening’ devices that are now live in 14.5% of UK homes – a number that is still steadily rising as the top ‘smart home’ companies continue to release a myriad of solutions – a growing sense of distrust for the companies that create them and their motives has flourished amongst the general public.

And, as the latest revelations from Apple reveal, sceptics were right – to a degree. Despite once being considered the ‘technology company of the people’, Apple’s slow metamorphosis into just another corporate entity comparable to the likes of Amazon and IBM has led to a shift in the public’s view of its presence in their lives.

In early 2019 an article by CNN entitled ‘Amazon reportedly employs thousands of people to listen to your Alexa conversations’ confirmed what many believed that they already knew – that the retail giant actively employed a global team of workers whose sole job was to transcribe the voice commands, and any other useful information captured by its Alexa-enabled smart devices.

The Amazon workforce, which reportedly included part-time and full-time workers from several countries including the US, Costa Rica and Romania, were ordered to listen to up to 1,000 audio clips in shifts that could last up to nine hours.