{"id":34612,"date":"2022-01-04T15:57:31","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T20:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=34612"},"modified":"2022-01-05T08:50:27","modified_gmt":"2022-01-05T13:50:27","slug":"siri-suggestions-and-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/04\/siri-suggestions-and-privacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Siri Suggestions and Privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff Johnson<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

I have no interest in Siri, and I don’t want my devices to phone home to Apple with so-called “anonymous” data that always turns out to be less anonymous than claimed. I expected that the OS would respect my setup screen choice, and indeed if I look at the Siri pane in System Preferences, everything looks disabled.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

At the very end you see Siri Suggestions, but you don’t<\/em> want to click “Learn More…” because that’s the wrong thing. In typical Apple fashion nowadays, this spectacularly bad UI has a disclosure widget that you want to click to learn about Siri Suggestions.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

I believe<\/em> that I understand what this is saying, but the most confusing and maddening thing about it is that not only are the Siri Suggestions preferences themselves somewhat hidden, but the procedures — multiple procedures! — required to stop Siri Suggestions from phoning home to Apple are hidden in entirely different places. It’s like an obstacle course of apps, preference panes, and buttons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s clearly not designed with the idea that you would want to turn off Siri Suggestions for privacy reasons, because there’s a separate checkbox for each app and you would have to remember to go back to the list each time you install a new app. The “Enable Ask Siri” checkbox looks like it might be a global killswitch for all Siri functionality, but it isn’t.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n