Earlier this month Apple made headlines after masses discovered the company hired teams of contractors to listen and analyze audio clips from customer’s Siri conversations.
Apple claims the grading process involved less than 1% of daily Siri activations and all recordings were anonymized. Naturally, Apple suspended the program which resulted in many out of a job. One of the contractors impacted by the decision claims that the Cupertino firm expected them to listen to at least 1,000 clips of Siri recordings per shift most only be a few seconds in length. Allegedly analysts were mostly listening to clips of users with Canadian, Australian, and UK English accents.
The previously mentioned employee says that the employees were hired on fixed-term contracts as data analysts in Cork, Ireland. It‘s been reported now that as many as 300 people are out of work. An Apple spokesperson said:
We believe that everyone should be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve — this includes our own employees and the suppliers we work with in Ireland and around the world. Apple is committed to customer privacy and made the decision to suspend Siri grading while we conduct a thorough review of our processes. We’re working closely with our partners as we do this to ensure the best possible outcome for our suppliers, their employees and our customers around the world.
Apple hasn’t disclosed whether it plans on resuming the program at a later date.