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Microsoft admits contractors listen to Skype, Cortana chats

2019-08-15 17:18 by
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Microsoft amended its privacy policy and other pages to make it clear human workers are listening to recorded conversations and commands to improve the services.

"We realized, based on questions raised recently, that we could do a better job specifying that humans sometimes review this content," a Microsoft spokesperson told Motherboard, which spotted the policy tweaks.

Tech companies in the United States have been facing broad criticism from lawmakers and regulators over their privacy practices. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have all been called out for failing to make it clear that a portion of audio recordings will be accessed by human contractors. But unlike Apple and Google, each of which halted listening to some of these recordings after the revelations, Microsoft appears to be merely updating its privacy policy to admit that yes, in fact, humans do review some of these recordings.

Microsoft does provide some privacy options: In the Windows 10 privacy settings, for example, you can turn off your PC's mic access entirely, or place app-by-app limits on its ability to listen in. You can turn off "Hey Cortana" functionality entirely, too. (If you don't, Windows is always listening for the "Hey Cortana" trigger.) The privacy dashboard also allows you to clear the activity.

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