Delete recordings of our conversations with Siri from Apple servers

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

It's simple, but not intuitive at all.

More recently, Apple found itself at the center of a scandal. It turned out that the recordings of users' conversations with Siri are being listened to by company employees. Here's how to delete all your records from Apple servers.

Why is it needed

At the moment, Apple is already wiretapping all over the world. In the future, it will return, but it will be used only with the permission of the user. The company needs this data to improve your speech recognition so that dictation and voice assistant work better.

Here is an excerpt from the iOS Security Guide ():

Records of users' voice requests are stored on the server for six months. The speech recognition system uses these recordings to better understand the user's voice. After six months, another copy of these records is saved - this time without an identifier. Apple keeps this copy for no more than two years and uses it to improve and develop Siri. After two years, Apple may continue to use a small set of recordings, transcripts, and associated data without identifiers for ongoing improvement and quality control of Siri.

Simply put, Apple can keep your recordings and transcripts for over two years. Data can be deleted earlier - but the company does not offer clear instructions on how to do this, unlike other companies with a similar practice. You can still do this - although the location of the settings is difficult to call obvious.

Delete conversations with Siri from Apple servers

First you need to turn off Siri itself. If you need it, you can return it later, but turning it off is necessary to reset the data that is already on the server.

1. Open Settings → Siri & Search.
2. Disable two items: "Listen to" Hey Siri "and" Call Siri with the "Home" button. On iPhone X / XS / XR, the second feature is called Side Button Call Siri.
3. You will see a warning about deleting data from the server. Click Disable Siri.

If you used the dictation function, then it also sent data to the server. You need to disable it separately.

1. Open "Settings" → "General" → "Keyboards".
2. Scroll down to Dictation. Disable this feature.
3. You will see a warning about deleting data from the server. Click Turn Off Dictation.

Done, data has been successfully deleted. Please note: these steps must be done on all devices. For example, if you have an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch with the same Apple ID, they all sent data independently, and you also need to delete them separately.