Siri Keeps Your Data For Two Years 124
New submitter LeadSongDog writes with news that Apple has provided information on how long it holds onto voice search data used by its digital assistant software Siri. Speaking to Wired, an Apple representative said the data is kept for two years after the initial query.
"Here’s what happens. 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. Once the voice recording is six months old, Apple “disassociates” your user number from the clip, deleting the number from the voice file. But it keeps these disassociated files for up to 18 more months for testing and product improvement purposes."
This information came in response to requests for clarification of Siri's privacy policy, which was not very clear as written. The director of privacy group Big Brother Watch said, "There needs to be a very high justification for retaining such intrusive data for longer than is absolutely necessary to provide the service."
Re:Rotten to the core. (Score:5, Informative)
I just tried it with Siri and it also punts to Wolfram Alpha so the answers are identical. There's no lakefront properties.
Re:Comparison with Google search? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I've been searching since I made the comment, and the best I've found so far is this thread [google.com] where a Google rep confirms that for every image search they keep a thumbnail of the item that was clicked on, as well as the IP address for 9 months (after which it gets anonymized), and identifying information for the cookie associated with you for 18 months (after which it gets anonymized and the IP address gets partially destroyed). What that means is that they never fully destroy the data, and that if the query was self-identifying in some way, someone could still tie all of the queries you made together since they would still be associated with the cookie data, even if that cookie data is no longer associated with you.
Take it with a grain of salt, however, since that's from back in 2011. As we all know, these tech companies have made big strides to protect our privacy better since then. Wait, no, I have that backwards.
Re:Protect your data with custom HOST file... apk (Score:0, Informative)
I'm not sure if this is a joke, so I'll answer honestly (if it is a joke, then I guess this just makes the butt of it, but oh well). This person posts completely off-topic rants about /etc/hosts, claiming persecution. If this showed up in your inbox, would you think twice before marking it "spam" and moving on to the next message?
Re:"Very High Justification" (Score:1, Informative)
Joking I hope? We have no idea how they claim to have found these guys yet.
The Government has relied on people turning in pictures and information "as far as we know" and did not find these guys by spying. I'm not claiming the Govt won't use that as an excuse, I'm saying it's untrue so you should not buy it if they do.
Re:WHY NOT DISPROVE MY POINTS THEN... apk (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously, as a professional troll, i have to say if they're getting you to do all this crazy stuff then they won.