IBM bans Siri on its network, worried about sensitive data leak

Concerned about the possible leak of company secrets and sensitive data, IBM has reportedly blocked Apple's Siri from accessing the company network.

According to a report in MIT Technology Review, IBM Chief Information Officer Jeanette Horan confirmed that company has disabled Siri on employee iPhones, on fears that spoken queries might be stored somewhere.

Company's worries aren't misplaced, as Wired reports that Apple's iPhone Software License Agreement clearly states, "When you use Siri or Dictation, the things you say will be recorded and sent to Apple in order to convert what you say into text."

To put the license agreement in layman's words, consumers acknowledge that Apple has to send, store, process and transmit data to make Siri work properly. Since all of Siri's processing happens on the cloud, the license agreement is just stating the obvious. Further, the Siri/ iPhone terms are pretty standard when you look at similar services that need access to the cloud.

The report also goes on to state that IBM has blocked Dropbox access. The latest step from IBM, thus, is a result of the IT company's concern about security on the cloud in general, and perhaps has little to do with Apple or the iPhone in particular.