For many years, Apple has built a very solid brand image around the confidentiality of its users : end-to-end encryption (on iCloud in particular), transparency in tracking and product design focused on the protection of privacy.

However, it seems that the Californian giant does not have a clear conscience regarding its Siri voice assistant. In fact, this comes from pay 95 million dollars to put an end to legal proceedings concerning him. A case which is reminiscent of that of Amazon last year, which had its hands in its wallet to avoid a scandal of the same type with Alexa.

“Hey Siri, spy on me! »

The voice assistant Siri would have exceeded its nominal activation parameters by recording conversations without the famous voice commandHey, Siri “. In any case, this is what Fumiko Lopez, lead plaintiff in the USA, explains.

She reports having noticed, with her daughter, a disturbing correlation between their private conversations and subsequent advertising targeting, which was a little too precise. A particularly evocative example concerns their discussions around a pair of Air Jordans: without having done any online research on these shoes, they started receiving targeted advertisements on this specific product.

This strange synchronicity would perhaps suggest the existence of a system for analyzing and transmitting voice data to advertising platforms, in total contradiction with Apple’s privacy commitments.

95 million to buy silence

The proposed settlement, which will be heard on February 14 in a Northern California court, provides for compensation of up to $20 per Siri-enabled device owned between 2014 and 2019. The lawyers should receive around 30% of the $95 million, or nearly $30 million.

For Apple, whose revenues reached $94.9 billion in the last quarter of 2024, this amount is almost symbolic as it is modest, but it will allow it to avoid a potentially more costly lawsuit. The Cupertino company maintains its position : “ Siri data has never been used to create marketing profiles or sold to anyone », Says an Apple spokesperson. The firm also committed to confirming the permanent deletion of individual audio recordings collected before October 2019.

This somewhat embarrassing affair adds to a fairly dense series of legal disputes involving the company since last year. In January 2024, Apple was forced to pay $500 million in the United States for deliberately slowing down the performance of certain iPhones. This practice, justified by the preservation of aging batteries, turned out to be a good old technique of planned obsolescence.

In March, it agreed to pay $490 million following class action led by the Norfolk County Council in the United Kingdom. The plaintiffs accused Apple of knowingly concealing information regarding the decline in iPhone sales in China. This drop would have had a significant impact on Apple’s financial results and, therefore, on the value of the shares. More recently, the consumer association Which? launched a procedure concerning the iCloud service and pointed the finger at Cook’s firm for abuse of a dominant position. It’s starting to be a lot.

The numerous cases that the company is facing are perhaps the sign of a paradigm shift: the tech giants are no longer untouchable, even when your name is Apple. If this is the case, it will certainly not happen overnight, but the company has every interest in reviewing its copy concerning his conception of private life. Its brand image could be severely damaged if other disputes of the same type arise.

  • Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to close a case where Siri allegedly recorded conversations without explicit activation.
  • A complainant claims that these recordings would have led to precise advertising targeting, in contradiction with Apple’s confidentiality commitments.
  • This case adds to a series of recent disputes which could weaken Apple’s image.

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