Apple is facing a lot of backlash since it admitted that third party contractors listen to user conversations via Siri without the user’s knowledge. In its defense, Apple said that it only listens to “a small part” of the conversations, that too for quality check purpose called “grading”. Days after that, Apple announced that it is suspending its grading process all over the world on a temporary basis. And it’s not just Apple, Google and Amazon also suspended its automatic process of human review of the voice recordings.
With Google Assistant and Alexa, the respective companies now give users the option to opt-out of the human review process, however with Siri, you have to disable Siri entirely or not at all. Apple has said that as a part of the next software, users will have a choice to opt-out of the grading process if they want.
Until then, if you do not want Siri to listen or record your conversations, you can disable it entirely from your device. One thing that you need to keep in your mind is that you need to disable Siri from all your devices, not just one if you want to maintain your privacy. Meaning, any device connected via iCloud has to be disabled if you want to turn it off from one.
If you turn off Siri on the iPhone, it will automatically be disabled from Apple watch.
How to disable Siri on your iPhone and Apple Watch
Step 1: Go to the “Settings” and select “Siri and search” option
Step 2: Turn off these two options: “Listen for ‘Hey Siri'” and “Press side button for Siri”
Step 3: Turn off dictation to delete your data from Apple cloud by going to Settings>General>Keyboard
Step 4: Turn off “Enable dictation”, it will warn you that Siri will be disabled on iPhone as well
How to disable Siri on MacBook
Step 1: Go to “System preferences”
Step 2: Click on Siri, untick the option “Enable Siri”
Step 3: Turn off “Dictation” option from System preferences
And you are now safe from anyone listening to your conversations without your knowledge.