Apple moves Siri's speech recognition offline with new privacy updates

Siri's speech-recognition capabilities can happen on-device beginning with iOS 15. The update will make Siri considerably faster and, in some cases, allow it to function without a WiFi or data connection. Apple announced the upgrade along with several other privacy updates arriving with iOS 15. For Siri, processing audio locally will alleviate some of the privacy concerns associated with audio recordings. The company had been previously criticized for a program that allowed third-party contractors to review Siri audio -- some of which contained sensitive information -- in order to review their accuracy (Apple later made recordings an opt-in feature).