AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
An anonymous Microsoft contractor who worked grading audio snippets from Skype conversations and Cortana recordings revealed to the Guardian that "no security measures" were taken to protect the audio clips.
The contractor, who worked out of Beijing, had access to the recordings through a Chrome web app through a Microsoft account login. He said that all the contractors' accounts shared the same password.
Last year a series of reports provoked public outcry after big tech companies including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google were revealed to be giving customers' audio recordings to human contractors for grading.
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Microsoft contractors working in China were able to listen to people's Skype conversations and Cortana recordings through a system woefully lacking in cybersecurity, the Guardian reports.
An anonymous Microsoft contractor who worked out of Beijing for years told the Guardian that he was able to listen to recordings of users with practically "no security measures." The contractor's work involved listening to short audio clips from Skype conversations and instructions given to Cortana (Microsoft's voice-assistant) to grade them for quality.
The contractor accessed the recordings which were selected to help grade and improve Microsoft's services through a Google Chrome web app on his personal laptop.
"They just give me a login over email and I will then have access to Cortana recordings," he told the Guardian. "I could then hypothetically share this login with anyone."
He said that he and other contractors were instructed to access the clips ..
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