NEW DELHI — 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.
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.
