Work for IBM? Like Siri? Tough luck: Wired reports that Big Blue has banned Siri from its networks in a futile attempt to protect its corporate secrets from Apple"s prying ears.
Speaking to MIT"s Technology Review, CIO Jeanette Horan said that the company had banned Siri because they were afraid that the “spoken queries might be stored somewhere.” This isn"t the first time that the service has been criticized for the same reason, since Siri sends all queries off to Apple"s Maiden, North Carolina data center for interpretation.
In fact, the ACLU put a warning out on Siri back in March, since Apple"s privacy policy admits that Siri does store some data that"s necessary for the service to be able to understand the user, like info on the user"s family and work. We also wouldn"t be too surprised if Apple didn"t have someone listening to at least some queries, to check them for accuracy and improve the service.
Edward Wrenbeck, one of the original developers of the Siri app before it was acquired by Apple, isn"t surprised that some businesses might be leery of the service. “Just having it know that you"re at a certain customer"s location might be in violation of a non-disclosure agreement.” On the other hand, he doesn"t think it"s any more of a problem than using a mobile device in general.
“I really don"t think it"s something to worry about. People are already doing things on these mobile devices. Maybe Siri makes their life a little bit easier, but it"s not exactly opening up a new avenue that wasn"t there before.” Unsurprisingly, Wired didn"t have much luck getting a statement from Apple.