Apple has agreed to pay $95 million U.S. to settle a lawsuit alleging that the company surreptitiously activated its virtual assistant Siri to record conversations through iPhones and other devices for more than a decade.

Cupertino

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million USD to settle a lawsuit involving its virtual assistant, Siri. The lawsuit alleged that Apple activated Siri to record conversations through iPhones and other devices without user consent. These recordings were allegedly shared with advertisers from September 2014 until the end of last year.

The settlement amount is relatively small compared to Apple's overall earnings, calculated to be approximately nine hours of profit. By settling the lawsuit, Apple does not admit any guilt, thereby avoiding the publicity and potential larger fines that a trial could bring. The settlement permits Apple to steer clear of charges such as wiretapping and breaking privacy laws, which could amount to fines over $1.5 billion.

The case is set to be finalized in court subject to judicial approval of the settlement. This situation contrasts with Apple CEO Tim Cook's stated commitment to consumer privacy as a fundamental human right. Apple is not the only company facing such allegations; other companies, such as Google, are also accused of listening to private conversations. Concerns about privacy issues continue to grow with advancements in AI and voice-activated technologies.



Apple to pay $95m to settle Siri privacy lawsuit

There's a lot of anecdotal stories out there about people talking about a place or a thing or a restaurant only to be advertised a few hours later on their advertising feed on their iPhones and it turns out that is in fact happening. Apple has settled for $95 million in a lawsuit that accuses Apple of allowing Siri to record conversations and then to share those conversations with advertisers from September 2014 to the end of last year and that $95 million is just a sliver of what Apple has made since 2014, for example, making $750 billion profit since then and so that represents, if doing the math, about nine hours of profit for Apple. Now legal analysts say that that settlement is a bargain. Now by settling it allows Apple to not admit any guilt whatsoever, also avoiding the publicity of a trial, avoiding bigger charges potentially of wiretapping or breaking privacy laws, which is a much bigger fine representing over a billion and a half dollars. So this is expected to be finalized in court in February if the judge does accept that settlement by Apple and it also goes against the CEO Tim Cook and his pledge to consumers to for consumer privacy saying, quote, that consumer privacy is a fundamental human right. Now Apple is not alone on this, Google and their voice messaging database also is being accused of listening in on private conversations and with the advent of AI infecting everything from Siri to all kinds of voice activations, there's a lot of worry by skeptics out there that this is not the last we're going to hear about these privacy issues. Scott Petersen, CBC News, Toronto.

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Washington

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