Tech Giants Risk Privacy Probes Over Alexa, Siri Reviewers
- Amazon, Google, Apple have humans review voice commands
- U.K. privacy authority to discuss issue with other regulators
Amazon Echo devices
Photographer: Daniel Berman/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Regulators and lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe are examining whether Google, Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are violating privacy by employing human reviewers to listen to voice commands recorded by digital assistants.
Apple and Google, which is currently being investigated by Hamburg’s data protection authority, have both suspended their programs; Amazon late Friday announced changes to its terms that let users opt out of human review of their recordings. Regulators from Ireland and the U.K. are now also looking into whether the tech giants have infringed European privacy regulations.