Apple has apologised for hiring contract workers to listen in to users' Siri recordings.
The company said it had hired the workers to review the audio in a bid to measure how well the digital assistant was responding to user requests.
It emerged in July that the workers had overheard people having sex, buying drugs and discussing medical issues with doctors.
Contractors that revealed the practice at the time said the bulk of the intimate clips were recorded through accidental triggers of the digital assistant.
The company suspended the practice, which it calls grading, after the reports emerged.
Overnight, it released a statement to apologise, adding "we realise we haven’t been fully living up to our high ideals."
Following an internal review, the company said it will re-introduce the practice later this year - with a number changes to the way it operates.
- Firstly, the company will no longer retain audio of Siri by default - although it will continue to retain computer-generated transcripts of user commands.
- Instead it will now ask users to opt-in to allowing the company retain and listen to the audio samples in order to "help Siri improve by learning."
- Moving forward, when customers do opt-in to the grading programme, only full Apple employees will be allowed to listen to the audio samples. Apple said its team will delete any recording that came from an "inadvertent trigger of Siri."
In the statement, Apple insisted that it believes privacy is a "fundamental human right" and said it is constantly working to protect user data.
It said it doesn't use Siri data for advertising purposes and never sells it outside the company.
Apple is not the only tech giant to admit to the practice.
Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook were all running similar programmes and have since suspended them.
