Apple has reiterated its commitment to Siri privacy. In an official statement, the company said it is “committed to protecting user data” and reinforced that the company’s products are “built from the ground up” with privacy technologies.
“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, and will continue to do so,” Apple has said.
The statement has been made to refute rumours that it has let advertisers target users based on Siri recordings. The conspiracy theory resurfaced last week after Apple agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit. Plaintiffs accused Apple of recording conversations captured after accidental Siri activations, and then sharing information from those conversations with third-party advertisers.
The company has also shared information about how Siri works. “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. The contents of the messages aren’t transmitted to Apple servers, because that isn’t necessary to fulfill the request. And for capable devices, the audio of user requests is processed entirely on device using the Neural Engine, unless a user chooses to share it with Apple.”
In certain cases, Siri needs to communicate with Apple’s servers, but the company argues that the requests are made anonymously through a “random identifier” not associated with the user’s Apple Account. This process ensures that no one can track the data or identify who’s behind the requests.
In the post, Apple also talks about how similar privacy practices apply to Apple Intelligence, which processes most of the data on device. “For Apple Intelligence requests that require access to larger models, Private Cloud Compute extends the privacy and security of iPhone into the Cloud to unlock even more intelligence,” the company said.