Apple’s Siri Faces French Investigation Over Alleged Unauthorized Voice Recording Collection
Apple’s Siri Faces French Investigation Over Alleged Unauthorized Voice Recording Collection
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Apple’s Siri Faces French Investigation Over Alleged Unauthorized Voice Recording Collection
October 6, 2025 — Paris prosecutors have launched an investigation into Apple and its voice assistant Siri over allegations that the company collected and used vast amounts of user audio recordings without their knowledge, according to a report by Politico today.
The investigation stems from a complaint filed in February by the French Human Rights League (LDH), based primarily on testimony from whistleblower Thomas Le Bonniec, a former employee of an Apple subcontractor. The case is being handled by Paris prosecutors’ Office for Combating Cybercrime (OFAC), and the investigation remains ongoing with results yet to be announced.
Whistleblower Revelations
According to Politico, Le Bonniec was hired in 2019 by Globe Technical Services, an Irish company, to analyze audio recordings collected by Siri in order to improve the quality of its responses. He revealed that the work involved listening to thousands of user recordings, many containing private moments and sensitive information—some even sufficient to identify individual users.
“Urgent questions need to be answered,” Le Bonniec stated. “Since 2014, how many recordings has Apple collected in total? How many people are involved (including their contacts and those around them)? Where is this data stored? Is Apple still continuing these operations?”
Regulatory Efforts and Legal Action
Before pursuing legal channels, Le Bonniec attempted to seek help from data protection authorities, including France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) and Irish regulators responsible for GDPR cases involving American tech giants. However, Ireland’s data protection authority decided not to launch an investigation in 2022.
Meanwhile, LDH’s lawsuit has spurred a class-action case led by lawyer and former parliamentarian Julien Bayou, calling on French iPhone users to participate in seeking compensation.
This initiative follows a similar 2019 case in the United States, where Apple was accused of recording users’ private conversations without consent. That case resulted in a settlement of $95 million in December 2024.
Apple’s Response
In response to the allegations, Apple France stated: “Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never provided it to advertisers, and never sold it to third parties for any reason.”
Additionally, in a blog post from January this year, Apple emphasized that the company does not retain “audio recordings of Siri interactions unless users explicitly consent.” As early as August 2019, Apple announced that users could choose whether to participate in improvement programs and stopped retaining recordings from accidental activations.
The outcome of the French investigation could have significant implications for privacy practices in voice assistant technology and set precedents for how tech companies handle user data in Europe.
