Apple’s Siri accused of eavesdropping on users – Politico

French prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into the US tech giant over allegations it recorded users without their consent.

French prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into Apple over allegations that its voice assistant Siri collected and analyzed user recordings without proper consent. The probe has been entrusted to France’s cybercrime agency, the Paris prosecutor’s office has told Politico and Reuters.

The investigation follows a complaint filed in February by a French NGO, based on testimony from whistleblower Thomas Le Bonniec, a former employee of an Apple subcontractor, who says he listened to thousands of Siri recordings as part of quality-control work in 2019.

Le Bonniec reportedly worked for Globe Technical Services in Ireland, where he reviewed and annotated audio clips to help improve Siri’s accuracy. He told Politico that the material sometimes revealed “intimate moments and confidential information,” which could be used to identify users.

The whistleblower has welcomed the probe, saying it should allow “urgent questions to be answered,” including how many recordings were made since Siri’s launch and where the data is stored.

An Apple representative in France told Politico that the company “has never used Siri data to create marketing profiles, has never made it available for advertising and has never sold it to anyone for any reason whatsoever.”

Apple also told Reuters that it has tightened Siri’s privacy controls since 2019, and again this year. The company said conversations with Siri “were never shared with marketers or sold to advertisers.”

In January, the company also stressed it would not keep “audio recordings of interactions with Siri, unless the user explicitly agrees.”

Apple has faced a similar class-action lawsuit in the US where its voice assistant has been accused of inadvertently recording private conversations, which were reviewed by third-party contractors as part of a quality-control.

Earlier this year, the tech giant agreed to a $95 million settlement, which a federal judge approved last month. The deal provides payouts of up to $20 per Siri-enabled device for users who owned Apple products between 2014 and 2024. Apple has also been ordered to delete older Siri recordings within six months.

Image credit: Miguel Tomas