Apple sets out position on Siri privacy after $95m class action lawsuit

Apple has reiterated its stance on Siri privacy just days after a $95 million class action lawsuit that sanctioned the tech giant for alleged third-party use of customer data.

On Wednesday, the iPhone maker said in a statement that it had never used Siri data to create marketing profiles, had not made it available for advertising, and had never sold it to anyone for any purpose.

The remark comes just days after the iPhone maker agreed to pay $95 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that Siri, Apple’s voice assistant, recorded users’ private conversations without their consent and shared those recordings with third parties.

But Apple has said that the company is constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private and will continue to do so.

The settlement means that eligible users could receive up to $20 per Siri-enabled device.

Although it agreed to the settlement, the iPhone manufacturer did not admit any wrongdoing.

“Privacy is a foundational part of the design process, and this applies to all of our products and services, including Siri, which has been engineered to protect user privacy and is the most private digital assistant,” the statement said.

Apple added that to protect users’ privacy, Siri is designed to perform as much processing as possible directly on the user’s device, enabling personalised experiences without having to transfer and analyse personal information on Apple’s servers.

Furthermore, the statement claimed Siri uses “as little data as possible” to provide an accurate result, with Siri searches and requests not being associated with any Apple account.

“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,” it said.