For a while now, users have been becoming more aware of contractors from various major tech companies listening in on voice assistants. The recordings were often made via smartphones or smart speakers, and some even involved sensitive information that were captured accidentally without prompting from the assistant.

Now, a new report reveals that even Xbox users were not spared from the controversial practice, as Microsoft contractors reveal that they also listened to Xbox user recordings.

Kinect And Cortana Recordings

Before Cortana was introduced to the Xbox in 2016, users had access to the Kinect system and even then some were concerned over the possibility of the system listening in on Xbox users’ commands. At the time Microsoft assured users that the Xbox was built with strong privacy protections, and soon after the Cortana was introduced to the console.

Now, former and current Microsoft contractors revealed to Motherboard that they had also been listening to Xbox user interactions with both Cortana and Kinect. This time, the recordings were mostly of children, and often of in-game commands as well as other features such as creating a “party.”

“The Xbox stuff was actually a bit of a welcome respite, honestly. It was frequently the same games. Same DLCs. Same types of commands,” the contractors said. This, of course, is in contrast with other Microsoft contractors’ experience of listening to users’ intimate conversations, search for pornography, and even dictations of full addresses.

Human Contractors

As is the case with other companies using human contractors, this practice was done to improve the service. While the former contractor states that they eventually received less of the accidental recordings as the feature was improving, the current one revealed that it is still an issue, saying that most of the recordings they are listening to are accidental activations wherein the user had to say “No” to Cortana in the middle of a game.

As for Microsoft, a spokesperson said that the company has always been clear about possibly collecting voice data to improve their services, though it was not previously directly stated that it could be humans who would be doing the review. Now, the company’s privacy statement is clearer about the possibility of human reviews.

That said, the contractors state that they were told during the hiring process that they should not tell anyone that they were doing the work for Microsoft. For now, Microsoft has removed Cortana from the Xbox, but the console can still be controlled using Cortana via Android or iOS Cortana apps.