Microsoft updates voice clips policy

Previously, giants such as Google and Microsoft had privacy scandals in voice. With the rise of voice assistant services, these giants have all launched corresponding software, but there are hidden dangers.

That is, by default, the voice content spoken by the user when interacting with the voice assistant will be collected by Microsoft and Google and uploaded to the server for analysis by the outsourcing provider.

The so-called analysis means that the outsourcing supplier arranges staff to listen to what the user said, and then to judge the semantics and help the voice assistant service better reply. Although both Microsoft and Google emphasize that the collected voices would be removed from personal information.

Originally, when Google was discovered to collect voice clips for listening to outsourcing suppliers, Microsoft CEO Nadella issued a statement stating that collecting these clips was necessary.

Because only collecting these voices for analysis can improve the recognition rate and improve responses, Microsoft strongly requires users to share some fragments.

If it is not shared, some services cannot be used. Of course, as an improvement measure, Microsoft later updated its privacy policy to clearly inform users that it does collect voice content.

Now Microsoft has decided to update the privacy policy again. According to Microsoft’s statement, the company will no longer force users to share voice clips. This is ultimately up to the user.

If users decide not to share voice clips, they can continue to use voice services such as Microsoft Cortana, but clips that have been collected before are not affected by the policy.

Click here to go to the Microsoft Account Center and log in with your own Microsoft account. After logging in, click Privacy under the title of the main page and then click Activity History.

Then click on the voice option under browsing your data to see the recordings listed on the right. These recordings will also indicate whether the data collection source is Cortana.

Of course, not only will Cortana collect user recordings in the Windows 10 desktop version, if you also use Cortana on the mobile terminal, the same recording clips will be uploaded to the Microsoft server.

You can listen to all your previous conversations here or delete specific conversations. Of course, click the clear all option in the upper right corner to delete all recordings.