IBM has barred the use of Siri and Dictation for iOS from their corporate networks citing security concerns. Both features send spoken data to Apple’s servers to be converted to text.
Jeanette Horan, IBM’s chief information officer, said the decision was made because the company is concerned that the spoken data could be stored somewhere on Apple’s servers.
Horan told MIT’s Technology Review that IBM surveyed several hundred employees and learned that many were “blissfully unaware” of what applications on their devices could be security risks.
Horan did admit that IBM is “extraordinarily conservative” when it comes to security, saying: “It’s the nature of our business.”
IBM also bars Apple’s iCloud storage service from its internal servers, IBM has employees use a company hosted service called MyMobileHub instead.
IMB’s policies toward applications and servers is not limited to Apple. Thrid-party file transfer services like Dropbox have also been banned as the company deals with employee-owned devices.
Any employee owned device must be configured by IBM IT department to allow its data to be remotely wiped if the hardware is lost or stolen.
