Siri listened without being asked: Apple wants to leave privacy scandal behind
The fact that Apple has settled an class action lawsuit out of court has given rise to new speculation. Siri data was never sold, the company now emphasizes.
(Image: Sebastian Trepesch)
Apple finally wants to put a massive Siri data protection scandal from several years ago behind it. Audio recordings and data collected by the voice assistant system have "never been used to create marketing profiles and have never been sold to third parties for any purpose", the company emphasized to Mac & i in a statement on Monday.
Apple is responding to renewed speculation about the misuse of Siri data because the company wants to settle a US class action lawsuit out of court. Among other things, the plaintiffs accused the company of passing on audio recordings collected by Siri to third parties for personalized advertising.
Apple hopes to leave Siri data protection scandal behind
Apple has decided to reach a settlement in the proceedings in order to "avoid further litigation so that we can put behind us the concerns raised in 2019 about the analysis of Siri audio recordings by third parties", the company explained. Apple also pointed out that the lawsuit that has now been settled did not provide any evidence that Siri recordings were used for targeted advertising. Siri data is used purely to improve the service and Apple is working on making the voice assistant system "even more private".
In 2019, employees of subcontractors working for Apple suddenly reported on their day-to-day work, which consisted of analyzing Siri audio recordings under allegedly lax data protection practices. The apparently often unwanted Siri recordings contained intimate details, sometimes in connection with personal information. A whistleblower subsequently called for an EU investigation and an end to such voice assistant systems.
Unwanted Siri recordings to be deleted
In response to the reports, Apple stopped the human analysis of the audio recordings, but only for a short time. Since then, Siri audio recordings have only been analyzed after the user has opted in. Apple generally stores transcripts of Siri requests for certain periods of time, even without this opt-in. According to Apple, the Siri data is linked to a random ID and not to the user's account. The company intends to delete recordings that are made when Siri is activated unintentionally.
(lbe)
