Siri Privacy Policy: One of Apple’s Best Features May Not Be Your ‘Friend’ After All

Siri Privacy Policy: Do you find yourself talking to your Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) device on a regular basis? Do you whisper to Siri, hoping to get all the answers to your many questions? If so, you are just like millions of other people throughout the world.

While there is nothing wrong with using Apple’s Siri, you may wonder to yourself: what happens to all that data? What happens to all those questions you have asked and commands you have given?

It appears that Wired has finally gotten to the bottom of this question pertaining to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Siri.

There have been concerns by many about the disclosures included in Siri’s privacy policy.

After Wired published this story, a spokesperson for Apple, Tracy Muller, made contact with the company to discuss Apple’s privacy policy.

This may not seem like that big of a deal, but it is not everyday that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) reaches out in an attempt to clarify this type of confusion.

As noted by Wired, “this is the first time that Apple has said how long it’s keeping Siri data.”

When talking to Siri, you may believe that the conversation is between the two of you. But as Wired notes, this is not the case. Here is what happens:

“Whenever you speak into Apple’s voice activated personal digital assistant, it ships it off to Apple’s data farm for analysis. Apple generates a random numbers to represent the user and it associates the voice files with that number. This number — not your Apple user ID or email address — represents you as far as Siri’s back-end voice analysis system is concerned.”

Does that bother you? Are you concerned that your information is being stored? Like most, this probably depends on how long Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) hangs onto the data.

At the six month mark, Apple “disassociates” your user number from the clip, deleting the number from the voice file. But it keeps these disassociated files for up to 18 more months for testing and product improvement purposes.”

There is definitely some gray area here, especially for those who are not familiar with the privacy policy in the first place.

Here is what Muller had to say:

“Apple may keep anonymized Siri data for up to two years. If a user turns Siri off, both identifiers are deleted immediately along with any associated data.”

If nothing else, you should remember that quote by Muller. It shows that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) may hang onto your Siri data for a period of two years.

With this in mind, more people will probably begin to think before they speak.

Siri may not be your friend after all!

For more on how Siri works, check out the video on the next page: