You should probably have the "Improve Siri & Dictation" setting off — here's why

You might not realize that your Apple devices are sharing your audio recordings and transcripts with Apple.

Apple/YouTube Add Engadget on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover An innocuous setting allows Apple to analyze your conversations with Siri and other built-in voice features like translations and dictation. If the Improve Siri & Dictation toggle is enabled, you're giving the company permission to store and review the transcripts and audio of your interactions with Siri, as well as translation or dictation requests.

You'll be asked if you want to enable this when setting up a Apple device, but you might have done that a long time ago and forgot. If you've already turned it on, you might have done so without knowing the extent of Apple's data processing and retention policies.

The speech processing models supported by this data are essential to Apple's AI initiatives, which are even more relevant now with the arrival of the new AI-powered Siri in iOS 27. The new OS is also adding several advanced dictation features, further underscoring the importance of audio datasets for Apple devices.

Whether you'd like your voice and data to contribute to Apple's development of Siri is up to you. If you enable the dictation improvement setting, Apple can analyze the content of requests and incorporate them into its language models. And although the company takes pains to protect your identity in the process, you may not feel comfortable with gifting Apple yet another slice of your privacy pie.

Apple Apple's Improve Siri & Dictation setting allows employees to review the audio, transcripts, and related request data of your voice command requests. This auxiliary information includes when and where you made the request, your device's specifications, performance statistics and the category of the interaction. Apple may also review contextual information such as your contact list or downloaded apps. According to Apple's legal page concerning the setting, employees review these transcripts in order to "fine-tune Siri, Search, Voice Control, Translate, and automatic speech recognition models." These manual reviews largely function as quality control tests.

Notably, only a select group of interactions is selected for review. However, depending on your device and uses, the information could be expansive. Consider how the latest Apple Watch models add an Apple Intelligence feature called Live Rewind, in which your watch will listen to your conversations and generate transcripts. And while this too is an optional feature, the underlying implication is clear: as dictation functionalities expand further into our daily lives, so do the potential privacy violations.

Typically, Apple will retain voice data for up to two years, although the company admits that some data may remain beyond this window. This is separate from the record on your physical device, where your Siri and dictation interactions are kept to "personalize your Siri experience." However, Apple doesn't sell your request history to marketers.

To Apple's credit, the company takes steps to protect your privacy.