Three German citizens of Russian origin were charged with cooperation with Russian special services to undermine military support for Ukraine. Learn about espionage methods and the challenges Germany faces in countering these threats.
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Apple has agreed to pay 95 million $ to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging Siri inadvertently eavesdropped on users’ private conversations.
The lawsuit primarily concerns users who own Siri-enabled devices in the US and whose private voice commands were inadvertently activated and recorded by Siri between September 2014 and December 2024. Owners of such devices can claim up to $20 per gadget if they can prove they were eavesdropped. Affected devices include iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBook, iMac, HomePod, iPod touch and Apple TV. The lawsuit against Apple was filed after The Guardian reported in 2019 that the company’s third-party vendors were listening in on Siri users’ private conversations; in 2021, those records could be shared with third parties, including advertisers, and the latter were the latest lawsuits filed against the company.
Apple denies any wrongdoing, saying there is no evidence the recordings were used for targeted advertising. However, after the incident, the company apologized to users, turned off the collection of analytics data to improve Siri, and introduced a new setting that allows users to delete the history of interactions with the assistant.
Case reiterates need for tighter privacy regulations in voice technology The Siri and Google Assistant cases show that tech giants need to be more transparent and accountable when it comes to storing user data.
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