Recently, Apple has faced criticism for allegedly letting contractors listen to Siri recordings for quality purposes. Customers and the media alike worried that this practice of automatic call recording and saving allowed too much sensitive and private information to be exposed.

Now, Apple has promised to make a few changes in the area of Siri information security.

In an effort to better protect Siri users’ privacy, Apple says it will no longer use contractors to review the data, performing this function in-house. Additionally, Apple will also stop automatically saving Siri interactions, only saving and reviewing those from customers who op-in to having their recordings saved for technological improvement purposes, says Forbes.

These changes were implemented after Apple received criticism from multiple fronts for allegedly saving Siri recordings without users’ knowledge or consent.

The Guardian reported in July that Apple hired contractors to listen to Siri interactions to grade Siri interactions for quality, in an effort to improve the technology.

This information reportedly came from the very contractors who were hired to grade the recordings. The contractors reported that they were asked to listen to recordings that were saved without the customers’ consent.

Additionally, in some instances, the contractors reportedly heard recordings that were taken when customers were not aware that Siri was recording — allegedly, these recordings included recordings of intimate, private moments, and even some illegal activity. Contractors worried that Siri was subjecting users to automatic call recording without their knowledge or consent.

The contractors told The Guardian that they were worried that with Siri’s automatic call recording model, customers did not have the option to truly opt-out of being recorded or having those recordings saved.

Forbes does note that Apple says it only graded around 0.2 percent of all Siri recordings — in other words, only a small sample, not all Siri recordings, were allegedly heard by humans.

The Verge reports that some contractors were listening to around 1,000 recordings per day — around two recordings per minute, if the contractor was working an eight-hour day. 

Apple then faced lawsuits over the issues, including one from a customer who said his privacy and the privacy of his minor son was compromised by Apple’s recordings of them and the company’s retention of these recordings.

In light of the criticism, Apple has updated its policies around Siri recordings, says Forbes. A statement from Apple said that the company “heard the concerns, immediately suspended human grading of Siri requests and began a thorough review of our practices and policies.”

Forbes says that Apple maintains that users could not be identified, but contractors who were hired to grade French language Siri recordings say that users were fairly easy to identify.

As part of their effort to ensure that users cannot be identified by recordings, Apple says that instead of retaining recordings by default, transcripts will be created from the interactions so that quality can still be improved. Then, the transcripts will reportedly be used to improve the quality of Siri’s interactions, and the transcripts will be kept by Apple for six months, says Forbes.

USA Today notes that this incident has worried customers, as Apple has reportedly called privacy a human right, and advertises its allegedly positive privacy records.