Apple clarifies its position on Siri's privacy policies following a $95 million class action settlement

Apple clarified on Wednesday that it has never sold data collected by its Siri voice assistant or used it to create marketing profiles, just days after resolving a lawsuit that included such accusations. 

The company recently agreed to pay $95 million to settle a class action lawsuit in which plaintiffs claimed that Apple had been recording private conversations without consent when Siri was unintentionally activated and sharing these conversations with third parties like advertisers.

Typically, voice assistants respond to "hot words" like "Hey, Siri."

Apple denied these claims and did not admit to them in the settlement, which may see millions of Apple users receive up to $20 per Siri-enabled device, such as iPhones and Apple Watches.

"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 company stated on Wednesday.

This clarification came after some social media users and commentators interpreted the settlement as proof that the allegations were true.

In its statement, the Cupertino-based company explained that certain Siri features require real-time input from Apple servers, and in such cases, Siri only uses the minimal amount of data necessary to provide an accurate response.

"Apple does not retain audio recordings of Siri interactions unless users explicitly opt in to help improve Siri, and even then, the recordings are solely used for that purpose," Apple added, promising to continue developing technologies to enhance Siri’s privacy.

A similar lawsuit involving Google’s Voice Assistant is currently pending in a federal court in San Jose, California. The same law firms represent the plaintiffs in both cases.