Microsoft stops 'listening in' on Xbox gamers after backlash
Microsoft has said that it has stopped listening to audio from Xbox One gamers after it emerged that contractors were listening to voice commands on the video game console since 2014.
The contractors were hired by Microsoft to listen to audio from players in order to improve the service's voice commands, according to a report on Vice's Motherboard, but the Redmond technology giant said in a statement that the practice was 'no longer necessary'.
"We stopped reviewing any voice content taken through Xbox for product improvement purposes a number of months ago, as we no longer felt it was necessary, and we have no plans to restart those reviews," a spokesperson for Microsoft said in a statement.
"We occasionally review a low volume of voice recordings sent from one Xbox user to another when there are reports that a recording violated our terms of service and we need to investigate. This is done to keep the Xbox community safe and is clearly stated in our Xbox terms of service."
The Xbox One console was enabled with voice commands since its launch in 2013, first via the Kinect camera and then through headset commands to Microsoft's personal assistant Cortana. The commands could be used to control the console or make orders in-game.Cortana is to be removed from the Xbox One in the console's next update.
Like most voice-activated technology, the Xbox's commands were triggered by a code phrase ("Xbox On" or "Hey Cortana") before recording. However, according to contractors quote in the Motherboard report, the voice recognition would often be triggered by mistake while players were in the middle of in-game chat or talking in their homes.
Microsoft's halting of the practice comes amid increasing scrutiny over voice-activated assistants listening in without their users knowledge and big tech companies using contractors to review audio.
Earlier this month, it emerged that Microsoft contractors had listened to 'sensitive' Skype calls and Cortana requests. Facebook also came under fire for employing contractors to transcribe users audio chats, while Amazon and Google has also been criticised for invading users privacy by outsourcing audio snippets for review.
Facebook, Google and Apple have all pledged to stop the practice, while Amazon allows users to opt-out.
"We’ve long been clear that we collect voice data to improve voice-enabled services and that this data is sometimes reviewed by vendors," Microsoft told Motherboard. ""We’ve recently updated our privacy statement to add greater clarity that people sometimes review this data as part of the product improvement process. We always get customer permission before collecting voice data, we take steps to de-identify voice snippets being reviewed to protect people’s privacy, and we require that handling of this data be held to the highest privacy standards in the law."
