Apple roles uncertain as f irm vows to review policy
‘Difficult for everyone involved’
HUNDREDS of employees working for an Apple subcontractor in Co. Cork face an uncertain future after it emerged that some staff heard intimate details of customers’ lives.
Staff working for GlobeTech could be affected after the tech giant announced it is to make changes to its Siri voice assistant.
The changes come after the Guardian newspaper reported that whistleblowers said staff in some centres regularly heard ‘confidential medical information’ and ‘recordings of couples having sex, as part of their job providing quality control’.
‘There have been countless instances of recordings featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on,’ The Guardian said earlier this month.
‘These recordings are accompanied by user data showing location, contact details and app data.’
Apple apologised for allowing workers to listen to voice recordings of Siri users in order to check for errors with the software.
The company said the data ‘is used to help Siri and dictation’ and to ‘understand you better and recognise what you say’.
An apology from Apple, posted on its website on Wednesday, said: ‘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 heard their concerns, immediately suspended human grading of Siri requests and began a thorough review of our practices and policies. We’ve decided to make some changes to Siri as a result.”
IT solutions business GlobeTech confirmed last week that a number of employees had been informed ‘that a client project has been brought to an early conclusion’.
‘The company is assessing the impact of this decision on the business and will continue to engage proactively with all employees in the coming days,’ a statement said.
GlobeTech chief executive Kevin Kelly said: ‘This is a difficult situation for everyone involved.
‘The nature of our business means that the majority of our employee contracts are fixed purpose and are linked to client requirements and project life cycles. We are committed to supporting our employees through potential redeployment opportunities, where possible.’
Apple employs around 6,000 people in Ireland, mostly at Cork’s Hollyhill site, where it has invested more than €220million.
Cork North Central Solidarity People Before Profit TD Mick Barry said yesterday that Apple should be held to account for the treatment of the workers who had lost their contracts. He said some of the workers affected had upended their lives and travelled halfway across the world to take up the contract and had been treated very shoddily.
Apple said that it will cease keeping audio for human review and instead let users opt in to having their audio reviewed. It added that it ‘will work to delete any recording which is determined to be an inadvertent trigger of Siri’.