French prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into Apple, accusing the company of recording users without their consent through its voice assistant Siri. The probe, entrusted to the Paris prosecutor’s office, stems from a complaint by a French NGO based on testimony from Thomas Le Bonniec, a former employee of an Apple subcontractor. Le Bonniec, who worked for Globe Technical Services in Ireland, reported reviewing thousands of Siri recordings for quality control in 2019, which sometimes contained intimate moments and confidential information. Apple has denied any misuse of Siri data, emphasizing that it has never used the data for marketing, advertising, or sales. The company claims to have tightened its privacy controls since 2019 and reiterated that conversations with Siri are never shared with marketers or sold to advertisers.
In addition to this probe, Apple has faced a similar class-action lawsuit in the United States. The lawsuit accused the company of inadvertently recording private conversations, which were subsequently reviewed by third-party contractors as part of quality-control efforts. Earlier this year, Apple agreed to a $95 million settlement, which was approved by a federal judge last month. The deal provides payouts of up to $20 per Siri-enabled device for users who owned Apple products between 2014 and 2024. The company has also been ordered to delete older Siri recordings within six months.