French prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into the US tech giant over allegations it recorded users without their consent<\/p>\n
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\u2019s cybercrime agency, the Paris prosecutor\u2019s office has told Politico and Reuters.
\nThe 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.
\nLe Bonniec reportedly worked for Globe Technical Services in Ireland, where he reviewed and annotated audio clips to help improve Siri\u2019s accuracy. He told Politico that the material sometimes revealed \u201cintimate moments and confidential information,\u201d which could be used to identify users.
\nThe whistleblower has welcomed the probe, saying it should allow \u201curgent questions to be answered,\u201d including how many recordings were made since Siri\u2019s launch and where the data is stored.
\nAn Apple representative in France told Politico that the company \u201chas 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Apple also told Reuters that it has tightened Siri\u2019s privacy controls since 2019, and again this year. The company said conversations with Siri \u201cwere never shared with marketers or sold to advertisers.\u201d\u00a0
\nIn January, the company also stressed it would not keep \u201caudio recordings of interactions with Siri, unless the user explicitly agrees.\u201d\u00a0
\nApple 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.\u00a0
\nEarlier 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t