SAN FRANCISCO: Taking a tough stand against contractors who listened to over 1,000 Siri recordings per shift including people having sex, Apple has reportedly laid off 300 contractors in Cork, Ireland.
According to a report in Engadget quoting the Guardian on Wednesday, after suspending the Siri "grading" programme last month, the Cupertino-based iPhone maker Apple has decided to terminate it.
"More contractors throughout Europe may have been let go", said the report.
An earlier report in Irish Examiner said that contractors in the city of Cork listened to over 1,000 Siri recordings per shift before Apple suspended the programme last month.
They regularly heard drug deals, sensitive business deals and even recordings of people having sex picked up by Apple's digital assistant.
The contractors had the job of listening to and grading recordings by Apple's virtual assistant Siri. The employee said that the details of each Siri user were kept anonymous.
"They (the recordings) were about a few seconds long, occasionally we would hear personal data or snippets of conversations but mostly it would be Siri commands," the employee was quoted as saying.