Apple denies using Siri data for marketing, advertisers

Apple on Thursday said that it never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose.

Advertisement

Last week, the tech giant last week paid $95 million to settle a class-action lawsuit, which alleged that it recorded their private conversations with Siri and disclosed these conversations to third parties such as advertisers.

“We are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private, and will continue to do so,” said the company in a statement.

According to the iPhone maker, they are committed to protecting user data, “and our products and features are built from the ground up with innovative privacy technologies and techniques”.

“Privacy is a foundational part of the design process, driven by principles that include data minimisation, on-device intelligence, transparency and control, and strong security protections that work together to provide users with incredible experiences and peace of mind,” the company stressed.

To protect user privacy, Siri is designed to do as much processing as possible right on a user's device, allowing for personalised experiences without having to transfer and analyse personal information on Apple servers.

“When a user talks or types to Siri, their request is processed on device whenever possible. For example, when a user asks Siri to read unread messages, or when Siri provides suggestions through widgets and Siri search, the processing is done on the user's device,” said Apple.

Although Apple attempts to do as much as possible on device, certain features require real-time input from Apple servers.

“And when that's the case, Siri uses as little data as possible to deliver an accurate result. Siri searches and requests are not associated with your Apple Account,” the company added.

Apple further stated that it 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.

“Users can easily opt out at any time,” it said.