Apple says it does not use Siri audio for advertising

Apple says that it does not use audio pulled from its Siri voice assistant product to build marketing profiles or for advertising purposes.

The announcement comes in the wake of the company’s $95 million January 2 settlement in a class action lawsuit brought by iPhone owners who alleged that Siri audio was shared with third-party contractors and used for targeted advertising.

Apple has acknowledged that contractors listened to Siri audio, but addressed a brewing debate over the plaintiffs’ targeted advertising claims in a blog post Wednesday.

“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,” the blog post said. “We are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private, and will continue to do so.”

The company has long promoted its dedication to user privacy and the blog post underscored that focus.

“We believe privacy is a fundamental human right, and we will continue our relentless focus on designing our products and services to protect it,” it said.

Apple features are designed from the start to protect privacy, the post said, and the design process is built on standards which include data minimization, transparency about privacy protocols and an ability for users to control how their data is handled.

Siri is the most private voice assistant in the marketplace, Apple said.

Siri searches and requests are not tied to users’ Apple IDs and instead are stored with random identifiers, the company said.

The tech giant also said it does not store audio from Siri unless users “explicitly” opt-in to allow data to be retained. When audio is stored it is only used to boost Siri’s quality, the company said.