Security News > 2020 > January > Microsoft now reviewing Skype audio in ‘secure’ places (not China)
Following reports about text transcriptions of live Skype calls being vetted by humans, meaning that sensitive conversations could have been bugged, Microsoft says it's moved its human grading of Cortana and Skype recordings into "Secure facilities", none of which are in China.
On Friday, The Guardian published a report after talking to a former Microsoft contractor who lived in Beijing and transcribed thousands of audio recordings from Skype and the company's Cortana voice assistant - all with little cybersecurity protection, either from hackers or from potential interception by the government.
The former contractor said that he spent two years reviewing potentially sensitive recordings for Microsoft, with "No security measures", often working from home on his personal laptop.
Humans reviewing audio has been par for the course at all the tech companies that are refining their voice assistants' voice recognition technologies: since April, the "Our contractors are listening to your audio clips" club has grown to include Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.
Microsoft issued a statement saying that, since Motherboard's reporting over the summer, it's ended its grading programs for Skype and Cortana for Xbox and moved the rest of its human grading into "Secure facilities".