By Lia
Microsoft contractors have been listening to Skype calls — including personal conversations and even phone sex — made through the app’s translation function, according to a report Wednesday.
Skype warns its users that some conversations may be analyzed to improve its services, though it doesn’t make clear that the calls will be reviewed by actual humans, Vice’s Motherboard reported.
The privacy policy of Microsoft, which acquired Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011, also doesn’t mention this.
Motherboard received five- to 10-second-long portions of some audio, in which callers are chatting about weight loss, loved ones and relationship issues.
“The fact that I can even share some of this with you shows how lax things are in terms of protecting user data,” a Microsoft contractor told the tech site. “Some stuff I’ve heard could clearly be described as phone sex.”
The contractors are tasked with reviewing the conversations in order to improve the app’s Translator service, which translates audio in real time into a given language.
The workers are given rough translations of the communications but must vet them and select the most accurate one — or provide their own translation. The audio is treated as confidential.
The data received by Motherboard shows that contractors are also listening to voice commands through Microsoft’s voice assistant, Cortana.
“I’ve heard people entering full addresses in Cortana commands, or asking Cortana to provide search returns on pornography queries,” the contractor said. “While I don’t know exactly what one could do with this information, it seems odd to me that it isn’t being handled in a more controlled environment.”
Microsoft said everything its contractors are doing is aboveboard.
“Microsoft collects voice data to provide and improve voice-enabled services like search, voice commands, dictation or translation services. We strive to be transparent about our collection and use of voice data to ensure customers can make informed choices about when and how their voice data is used. Microsoft gets customers’ permission before collecting and using their voice data,” a spokesperson told Motherboard in a statement.
The statement added, “We also put in place several procedures designed to prioritize users’ privacy before sharing this data with our vendors, including de-identifying data, requiring non-disclosure agreements with vendors and their employees, and requiring that vendors meet the high privacy standards set out in European law. We continue to review the way we handle voice data to ensure we make options as clear as possible to customers and provide strong privacy protections.”
Microsoft said contractors are only privy to audio data through a secure online portal and that the company scrubs information that identifies a user, as well as device identification numbers.
“I generally feel like that while we do not have access to user identifiable information, that if Microsoft users were aware that random people sitting at home in their pajamas who could be joking online with friends about the stuff they just heard, that they wouldn’t like that,” the contractor said.
Amazon’s Alexa service recently came under similar scrutiny following a Bloomberg report that found that workers are sifting through as many as 1,000 recordings per shift.
