Apple could be fined $22 million for eavesdropping on Siri requests

Ireland’s data protection watchdog is in talks with Apple to establish how letting contractors here listen to Siri recordings was complaint with the tech giant’s GDPR obligations.

Jess Casey for the Irish Examiner:

The Data Protection Commission has sought further details from Apple after it was revealed by the Irish Examiner that employees at a third-party company in Cork were listening to recordings collected from Siri.

Companies found to be in serious breach of GDPR obligations may be liable to face penalties of up to €20m, or 4% of its annual global turnover, whichever is higher.

This week, Apple… announced changes to the system moving forward. By default, the company will no longer retain audio recordings of Siri interactions and Apple users will be able to opt-in if they would like their recordings graded by Apple employees.

This statement issued by Apple will be taken into account during the “engagement” between the company and the Data Protection Commission, added a spokesperson for the commission.

MacDailyNews Take: Now that Apple has corrected the situation, making Siri grading opt-in, hopefully the Data Protection Commission will really take that into account. Not that Apple couldn’t handle the full $22 million, as they’ve generated more than that in the time it took you to read this.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]

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