Apple fires hundreds of workers hired to listen to Siri recordings

Apple is terminating the contracts of 100 of workers who were hired to listen to Siri recordings according to a report from the Guardian.

Last month, Apple was revealed to be sending audio data over to contractors to improve Siri. The contractors would accidentally hear private or personal information sometimes, and a few users were scandalised that this wasn’t made clear when signing up for Siri originally.

The firm has put an abrupt end to the program, leading to mass job loss.

As per the report, more than 300 employees have been fired in one facility in Cork, Ireland, and some have been sent home with less than one week’s notice.

“Apple, recruiting through vendor companies in Ireland, take absolutely no responsibility in the employment of contractors and their treatment in work,” one employee told the Guardian, “They do what they want, and when they’re done with your project or they screw up (like what just happened), they tell your vendor company to let you go, which they do … It’s been coming at them for over a year. How could they not see this coming? Did they think about protecting their employees at all? Or just their reputation? We’ve all been laid off after the scandal, with no protection against this. More than 300 at once just in Cork, with no redundancy, just one week’s notice.”

Microsoft and Google have also suffered similar public relations hits. Though while the former doubled down, the latter also chose to suspend it temporarily.

Source: The Guardian