Apple Reaffirms Privacy Stance Following Siri Lawsuit
Digital assistant Siri was engineered to protect user privacy and audio recordings of its interactions have never been sold or stored without consent, Apple said Tuesday after agreeing to a $95 million settlement in a lawsuit that alleged Siri routinely recorded private conversations.
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“Apple does not retain audio recordings of Siri interactions unless users explicitly opt in to help improve Siri, and even then, the recordings are used solely for that purpose,” Apple said in a statement clarifying its privacy stance. “Users can easily opt out at any time.”
The class-action suit alleged that Siri recorded private conversations even though the app wasn't intentionally activated, and therefore the plaintiffs didn't agree to be recorded. Apple denies the allegations, saying Siri is designed to process users' requests on their devices and personal information isn't transferred to Apple servers. When input from Apple servers is needed, Siri uses a random identifier to track the data as it's processed, so as not to tie the search or request to the user’s identity, the company said.
“Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose,” it added. “We are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private, and will continue to do so.”