A former Apple contractor who pulled the curtain on the tech giant last summer, exposing an inside program that listens to user's Siri recordings, has made himself known to the world. Thomas le Bonniec worked under a Siri'grading project' that gathered snippets of audio in order to improve the smart assistant's accuracy. Last year, le Bonniec revealed to The Guardian that while working for Apple he heard private and sometimes intimate recordings including medical discussions, criminal activity, sex and official business talks. The whistleblower had initially remained anonymous, but has revealed himself in protest against the lack of action taken against Apple for'violating fundamental human rights' - and he has done so with an open letter to European privacy regulators stating his concerns. Former Apple contractor, Thomas le Bonniec, who pulled the curtain on the tech giant last summer, exposing an inside program that listens to user's Siri recordings, has made himself known to the world'There's not much vetting of who works there, and the amount of data that we're free to look through seems quite broad,' le Bonniec told the Guardian in July.

Apple has launched new privacy settings with its voice assistant Siri. The new features strive to fade out privacy concerns of the users. As announced recently, Apple is introducing new settings with Siri to allow better privacy control to users. Reportedly, Apple has taken this decision in the wake of reports regarding how Siri listened to users' recordings. We know that customers have been concerned by recent reports of people listening to audio Siri recordings as part of our Siri quality evaluation process -- which we call grading… We've decided to make some changes to Siri as a result.

Apple has apologised for allowing contractors to listen to voice recordings of Siri users in order to grade them. The company made the announcement after it completed a review of the grading programme, which had been triggered by a Guardian report revealing its existence. According to multiple former graders, accidental activations were regularly sent for review, having recorded confidential information, illegal acts, and even Siri users having sex. "As a result of our review, we realise we have not been fully living up to our high ideals, and for that we apologise," Apple said in an unsigned statement posted to its website. "As we previously announced, we halted the Siri grading program. We plan to resume later this fall when software updates are released to our users."

Hundreds of Apple workers across Europe who were employed to check Siri recordings for errors have lost their jobs after the company announced it was suspending the programme earlier this month. More than 300 employees have had their contracts ended in the company's Cork facility alone, according to former employees, with more sent home from other sites across Europe. The staff had been on paid leave since 2 August, the day Apple announced its decision to suspend the programme, referred to as "grading", as it conducted "a thorough review". The decision followed a story in the Guardian that revealed the workers frequently heard confidential medical information and couples having sex while checking the Siri recordings. The graders, employed through contracting firms, were sent home that Friday, with many told there was no work for them due to "technical errors".

Apple workers have stopped listening to Siri queries worldwide, the company said this week. Apple plans to bring back human reviews of Siri voice recordings at some unspecified date, but the company said it will only review them when customers specifically opt in to the practice. Separately, Google today confirmed that it recently "paused" human reviews of Google Assistant queries worldwide. Apple's decision to stop having humans listen to Siri queries follows a report last week that contractors who review the recordings for accuracy heard private discussions and even sexual encounters. Apple calls the human reviews of Siri recordings "grading."

Apple has suspended its practice of having human contractors listen to users' Siri recordings to "grade" them, following a Guardian report revealing the practice. The company said it would not restart the programme until it had conducted a thorough review of the practice. It has also committed to adding the ability for users to opt out of the quality assurance scheme altogether in a future software update. Apple said: "We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy. While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally. Additionally, as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading."

Apple contractors regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex, as part of their job providing quality control, or "grading", the company's Siri voice assistant, the Guardian has learned. Although Apple does not explicitly disclose it in its consumer-facing privacy documentation, a small proportion of Siri recordings are passed on to contractors working for the company around the world. They are tasked with grading the responses on a variety of factors, including whether the activation of the voice assistant was deliberate or accidental, whether the query was something Siri could be expected to help with and whether Siri's response was appropriate. Apple says the data "is used to help Siri and dictation … understand you better and recognise what you say". But the company does not explicitly state that that work is undertaken by humans who listen to the pseudonymised recordings.