The French NGO of Human Rights, League for Human Rights, accused Apple of privacy violations, illegal processing of personal data and deceptive commercial practice, as reported by Radio-France And the world for the first time.
The complaint in confidentiality is based on the information provided by a former employee who supposed to share proof of the collection and massive treatment of Siri vocal records without user consent.
The French complaint – filed with the Paris prosecutor on Thursday, February 13, 2025 – only occurs a few weeks after the great technological giant agreed to pay $ 95 million in regulations for a similar trial in California, despite the admission of the ‘reprehensible act.
Invasion of privacy and RDPR violations
French Thomas Le Bonniec began working for Globe Technical Services (GTS) in Cork, Ireland, spring 2019. He was part of a team responsible for improving the response of the Siri multilingual chatbot by listening, transcribing and By marking the recordings triggered by Apple Assistant’s voice.
“The very first day, we were told that we were going to work on recordings of people speaking to their Siri assistant or on recordings captured without their knowledge when the machine was launched by mistake,” the Bonniec told Radio France.
His work mainly involved verifying Siri’s transcriptions for accuracy and determining whether they were accidental records. During his stay in GTS, the Bonniec said that he and his colleagues had listened to a considerable number of very private conversations launched by mistake.
Some in the team, explained the Bonniec, were also responsible for labeling the tasks. “They had to compare the keywords pronounced during a recording and link them to the data stored in the devices to which we had access such as contacts, geolocation, music, films, brands, etc. They scored these Personal data with keywords “, he added.
As consulted by the Radio France survey unit, the LDH complaint accuses Apple’s practices of imposing RGPD rules on data protection and informed consent.
The @LDH_FR deposits plunde against ample and its vocal “SIRI” violation of privacy, illegal traction of personal data and misleading commercial practice. Pour Read the survey of Stéphane Pair to read in his son Integrality ⬇️ Pic.twitter.com/3mqy9b5p00February 14, 2025
Speaking of a French television channel, the president of LDH, Nathalie Tehio, said that the complaint focuses on two main offenses: the invasion of private life by recordings made without consent of individuals and the violation of the law on law Protection of personal data from the EU.
“It is not only spied on, he is recorded. There is listening, recording and even sending,” said Tehio. “There is a recording without the knowledge of people. This is an offense. On the other hand, there is a violation of the GDPR, that is to say that we did not Not given our informed consent for this aspiration of personal data.
Contacted by Techradar, Apple explained that he had made some modifications in 2019 to guarantee Siri’s conformity with the commitment of business confidentiality. These include no longer keep the audio records of Siri interactions. Users can also oppose or disintegrate Siri to improve by learning audio samples from their requests.
According to Apple’s Declaration published in January 2025, “Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone at fine.
What is the next step?
The question of whether the LDH complaint will open a wider survey on Apple data processing practices is too early to know with certainty.
As mentioned above, however, Apple is currently faced with similar problems at home. Collective recourse in California, Lopez et al c. Apple Inc, accuses Siri of disclosing private conversations to advertisers.
Although he has not confirmed such allegations, Apple has decided to be satisfied with $ 95 million “to avoid additional disputes so that we can pass concerns about the third notation that we have already addressed in 2019”, A company spokesperson said at the time at Techradar.
Considering that, as Research from one of the best vpn providers proton vpn shows, Big Tech Needed Less Than Three Weeks This Year to Pay Off Over $ 8 Billion in 2024 Fines, the California Lawsuit’s Settlement Seems to Be Set To Pile Up Among The Costs of do business rather than to have a real impact.
