Apple clarified on Wednesday that it has never sold the data collected by its Siri voice assistant or used it for marketing purposes. This comes after the company settled a class-action lawsuit last week for $95 million, where plaintiffs alleged that Apple recorded private conversations unintentionally triggered by Siri and shared these with third parties, including advertisers.
The lawsuit claimed that Siri activated when users said “Hey Siri,” potentially recording private conversations and disclosing the data without consent. Apple denied these accusations, stating that it did not use Siri data to build marketing profiles, nor did it make this data available for advertising or sell it for any purpose.
Apple explained that Siri uses real-time input from its servers for certain features, and only the minimum necessary data is processed to deliver accurate results. The company emphasized that it does not retain audio recordings of Siri interactions unless users opt in to improve Siri’s performance, and those recordings are used solely for that purpose.
Apple also promised to continue developing technologies to enhance Siri’s privacy. A similar lawsuit regarding Google’s (GOOGL.O) Voice Assistant is currently pending in California, with the same law firms representing the plaintiffs.
