Siri Whistleblower Calls for Privacy Probe Into Unintended Recordings and Human Review

Former Apple employee and whistleblower Thomas Le Bonniec urged data protection authorities to investigate allegations that Siri recorded users without deliberate activation and sent sensitive conversations to Apple for human review. In a letter published in May 2020, he alleged that employees listened to, analyzed, and transcribed recordings containing personal information. The allegations followed The Guardian’s 2019 reporting that Apple contractors regularly heard confidential details in Siri recordings.

Privacy organization noyb questioned whether Apple’s August 2019 apology and promised changes had ended the alleged practices, arguing that unlawful voice-assistant recording could breach GDPR and ePrivacy requirements. It said it knew of no investigation initiated following Apple’s earlier statement, planned complaints against technology companies over such recording, and called for urgent regulatory review under Article 66 GDPR. The references do not establish whether the alleged practices continued after Apple’s changes or whether regulators subsequently opened an investigation.