Microsoft wants to listen to your voice recordings - but will ask for permission first

Privacy advocates now have the option to opt-out.

Microsoft has confirmed some important changes to how it processes voice recordings. From now on, users of the company’s voice-enabled services like Cortana can decide whether their audio recordings are stored and analysed by the company to improve speech recognition or not.

“If customers choose to opt-in, people may review these voice clips to improve the performance of Microsoft’s artificial intelligence systems across a diversity of people, speaking styles, accents, dialects, and acoustic environments,” John Roach, Microsoft’s Executive Architect of Digital Transformation Services, explained. “The goal is to make Microsoft’s speech recognition technologies more inclusive by making them easier and more natural to interact with… Customers who do not choose to contribute their voice clips for review by people will still be able to use all of Microsoft’s voice-enabled products and services.”

While individuals that opt-in to Microsoft’s new policy may have their actual recordings listened to, even those that opt-out won’t have their privacy completely protected. Microsoft will still be able to access the transcriptions that are automatically generated by AI algorithms during audio engagements, for example. BARCLAY BALLARD