As mouthy as the saucy Siri can be, it's no wonder Apple's latest gadget has gotten herself into trouble with the notoriously offended American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU of Northern California penned a very pointed press release today detailing all the ways in which Siri is more nefarious than any dirty question you've ever asked the iPhone 4s's personal assistant feature.
While Siri might be prudish when you ask her questions about sex, for instance, it seems she isn't exactly a Puritan when it comes to keeping your private conversations off the record.
According to the ACLU:
Apple's Siri "personal assistant" isn't just working for us, it's working full-time for Apple too by sending lots of our personal voice and user info to Apple to stockpile in its databases. This data can be really personal, like if you ask Siri, "where is the nearest abortion clinic?"And once Voice Input Data and User Data is collected, Apple reserves
the right to share it with "Apple's partners who are providing related
services to Apple."
But in this age of information, does it really surprise anyone that Siri is a spy for Apple?
If this does bother you, the ACLU has cracked the code (i.e., read the fine print) on how you can keep Siri from telling all to Apple.
"Once you turn off Siri, Apple's privacy policy says it will delete
User Data and any recent Voice Input Data," says Nicole Ozer of the ACLU. "Though older Voice Input Data
that has been already 'disassociated' from you and your device may
linger for an undisclosed period of time to "improve Siri and other
Apple products and services."
Ahhh .... another relationship doomed.
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