iOS 15 bug sends Apple Siri recordings by mistake

When you upgrade your iPhone to iOS 15.4 (currently in beta), you’ll be greeted with a screen asking if you’d like to share recordings of your Siri requests with Apple to help improve the service. If so, the recordings are pseudonymized so they cannot be specifically associated with you, but they will be heard by Apple employees who will use them to help Siri better understand what you are saying and what you are saying. mean.

But… hadn’t this already been the case for years? In fact Apple has just fixed a bug in iOS 15 which caused Siri recordings to be shared with it… even if the user had refused this function. Annoying, especially since the firm had already raised an outcry that forced him to review his copy. According to the Apple firm, only a small number of users would be affected. Not so reassuring when you know the huge installed base, suggesting that several hundred thousand people could potentially have been affected. When Apple discovered the bug, it disabled the feature for many users in iOS 15.2 and proceeded to delete all saved queries inadvertently. Since iOS 15.4 (beta 2), the bug has therefore been fixed. But to roll out the fix, Apple has to ask everyone again if they want to share their Siri recordings with it. History is truly an eternal restart.

Control of records in the hands of the user

If you choose to share these recordings, anything you say immediately after invoking the “Hey Siri” feature (or when you hold the side button on your iPhone), will then be sent to the provider and can be used by their teams. The latter thus examine requests to push the improvement of Siri in speech recognition and language understanding. All personal information is stripped from the recordings – it is associated with a random unique device identifier that is not associated with your name, email address, Apple ID or any other data the company has at your disposal. topic. If you choose not to share them, then Siri recordings will never leave your device. If you change your mind, you can edit your answer to subscribe (and/or unsubscribe) at any time. This will be possible by opening Settings > Privacy > Analytics & Improvements and toggling the Improve Siri & Dictation toggle.