Apple Will Pay $95m Penalty For Misusing Siri
Apple says it will now pay $95m (£77m) to settle a case in the US that has successfully claimed that its Siri virtual assistant was listening to Apple users without permission. Mobile device owners complained that Apple often recorded their private conversations after they activated Siri unintentionally, and disclosed these conversations to third parties such as advertisers.
Apple previously denied any wrongdoing, as well as claims that it "recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete, conversations recorded as the result of a Siri activation" without consent.
Apple's lawyers also say they will confirm they have "permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected by Apple prior to October 2019". Apple has proposed a decision date of 14 February in the court in Northern California.
But the claimants say the tech firm recorded people who activated the virtual assistant unintentionally, without using the phrase "Hey, Siri" to wake it. They say advertisers who received the recordings could then look for keywords in them to better target ads. The lead plaintiff Fumiko Lopez claims she and her daughter were both recorded without their consent and they say they were sent targeted ads.
Last year, Apple agreed to pay $500 million in compensation to settle a class action lawsuit over the claims that it deliberately slowed down certain model iPhones.
BBC | YouTube | Reuters | The Guardian | ARS Technica | VOA
Image: Ideogram
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