Tech giants risk privacy probes over Alexa, Siri reviewers

Regulators and lawmakers in the US 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.

“We are aware of privacy concerns relating to voice assistant programs and will be assessing the available information,” said a spokeswoman for the Information Commissioner’s Office, the U.K.’s data protection regulator. She added the ICO would discuss the matter with the board of European data protection authorities “in order to ascertain the full facts and any possible risks to the rights of U.K. residents.”