Voice assistants can feel like the personal assistants of our dreams — the ones we never had in our lives. At first, they are exciting. They tell us the weather when we wake up, and what kind of a jacket we’ll need for the day. They tailor restaurant recommendations to suit our location and even our preferences, should they learn them over time. They even send us reminders about all of the important meetings and events we have to attend.
If it is starting to feel like your phone’s voice assistant — Siri, in the case of iPhone — knows a little too much about you, it’s not your imagination. Siri has to listen in order to fulfill your needs and what you expect of it. But, yes, that can feel and be a little too creepy. If you are tired of thinking about how much of your data Siri is accumulating, these are the settings you need to know about — and turn off.
What Information Does Siri Learn?
Siri learns a lot about you over time. Some of the more alarming things it can do include listening to your voice recordings and sometimes storing them and possibly even linking them to your Apple ID and storing them on Apple’s servers. In order to respond to you and make accurate predictions about your needs, Siri can collect data about your interactions, location, browsing habits, contacts, and other personal information. If you’re using Siri with third-party apps, those apps may also be accessing your personal data.
Luckily, there are steps you can take to minimize how much data Siri collects.
How To Limit Siri’s Privacy Risks
There are a few steps you can take to limit Siri’s potential privacy risks. For starters, turn off “Hey, Siri:” go to Settings > Siri & Search > Toggle off Listen for “Hey Siri.” You can also control whether Siri provides your data to other apps by going to Settings > Siri & Search and toggling off all of the apps you don’t want Siri to interact with.
Finally, limit Siri’s access to your location. Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Turn off Location Services entirely or disable it for specific apps like Maps or Siri.
