Apple is Teaching ‘Siri’ To Listen To You, And Only You

The virtual assistant Siri on your iPhone or iPad will soon only be responding to your voice - and by that it means only you can communicate with Siri, not for the others, even your family members and friends. At present, Siri will respond to any voice command, even from the lock screen (if enabled) - which has coincidentally led to the access to personal data, such as photos. When unlocked, Siri will respond to anyone who giving the voice commands.

Apple is reportedly working on the solutions to this, by using a combination of a special phrase and authenticating your unique voice to ensure that Siri responds to you and only to you. According to Patently Apple, Apple has applied for a patent application to the US Patent & Trademark office of a new security feature for Siri. While Samsung already integrated the facial recognition to its new flagship - the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, the voice recognition could probably be Apple's new innovation to enhance its coming iPhone's security.

Apple first introduced the fingerprint scanner "Touch ID" on iPhone 5s a few years ago, in the effort to add a more complex layer of security to the device - which later becomes a common feature in most premium and midrange smartphones nowadays. With the rumored new Siri ability, vocal password (which carries an audio footprint) could potentially be the "thing" in the future.

Technically, this feature is known as Voice Biometrics. This mechanism allows Siri to only recognize the voice of the owner of the device. If the voice seems not matching to the stored pattern, your iPhone or iPad would then ask for the passcode or to use the Touch ID to verify your identity.

It is not known yet if this feature can be relied on, as imitating voice could come easily to certain people. As for the implementation, there is no concrete news yet whether Apple may choose to feature this to the upcoming iPhone, at least this year.