Apple Agrees To Pay $95 Million To Settle Wood Law Firm Suit Against Siri Recording Chats
Raises eyebrows, as the tech giant always emphasized privacy as a fundamental aspect of its brand
Apple Agrees To Pay $95 Million To Settle Wood Law Firm Suit Against Siri Recording Chats
Raises eyebrows, as the tech giant always emphasized privacy as a fundamental aspect of its brand
Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Wood Law Firm, alleging that its virtual assistant, Siri secretly recorded conversations of iPhone and other Apple device users without their consent.
However, the tech giant issued a statement after social media users and commentators interpreted the settlement as confirmation that the allegations were true.
The company stated, “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. We are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private.”
Filed in August 2019, the lawsuit claimed that Siri had been secretly recording conversations, even when users had not activated the assistant with the ‘Hey Siri’ command. Some recordings were shared with advertisers to target consumers with tailored product promotions.
A similar lawsuit on behalf of users of Google's Voice Assistant is pending in the US District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose.