French prosecutors said on Monday, October 6, that they have opened an investigation into American tech giant Apple’s virtual voice assistant Siri after a technology researcher accused Apple of illicit data collection, Reuters reported.
According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, the investigation has been entrusted to a police force specializing in cybercrime, but they did not provide any further details.
Meanwhile, technology researcher Thomas Le Bonniec told Reuters that the source of the complaint was filed by one of France’s oldest and most influential human rights organizations, the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH).
“The opening of a criminal investigation … sends a clear message: fundamental rights matter, and there are organisations and people determined to uphold them,” Le Bonniec said.
LDH had previously complained against Apple, saying it was allegedly collecting, recording, and analyzing Siri conversations without the consent of device users, which violates the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
Tech giant Apple told Reuters on Monday that it had tightened Siri privacy controls in 2019 and again in 2025. The company pointed to a post on its website in January that said, “Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose. We are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private and will continue to do so.”
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Siri is a virtual voice assistant used on Apple devices, including the iPhone, iPad, Mac, HomePod, etc., that listens to the user’s conversation and answers questions, follows instructions, sends messages, makes calls, and performs various tasks.
This article includes reporting from Reuters.