Apple to pay $95m to settle Siri 'listening' lawsuit | BBC News — Transcript

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1. 0:00Apple has offered to pay $95 million to
2. 0:03settle a lawsuit in which the company
3. 0:04was accused of eavesdropping on iPhones
4. 0:07and other devices the allegation is that
5. 0:09for 10 years Apple secretly activated
6. 0:11the Siri on mobile devices to record
7. 0:14people's conversations as many of you
8. 0:16know Siri is the the virtual assistant
9. 0:19on Apple devices that should only be
10. 0:21activated with the trigger words hey
11. 0:23Siri the lawsuit claimed that some of
12. 0:25these recorded conversations were then
13. 0:27shared with advertisers in an attempt to
14. 0:29sell products to Consumers they thought
15. 0:32would most likely be interested in those
16. 0:35products we can speak now to our North
17. 0:37American Technology correspondent uh
18. 0:39Lily Jamal good to see you Lily um I
19. 0:42thought Tim Cook the CEO had said that
20. 0:44it was a a fundamental human right to
21. 0:46have your privacy protected uh by the
22. 0:49tech companies and yet now we learn the
23. 0:52allegation is that they've been
24. 0:54listening in for 10
25. 0:57years it's a great point that you make
26. 1:00about the way that this company has
27. 1:02branded itself has marketed itself to
28. 1:05Consumers over these many years when you
29. 1:07think about the ecosystem in Silicon
30. 1:09Valley you have all these other
31. 1:11companies that have made a business
32. 1:13model made billions upon billions of
33. 1:15dollars by harvesting all of our data
34. 1:18and monetizing it uh you may have heard
35. 1:21the phrase We Are the product not the
36. 1:24customer and I think Apple has
37. 1:26consistently differentiated itself on
38. 1:28the basis of privacy so I think that is
39. 1:30really one of the most interesting
40. 1:32aspects of this settlement uh settling a
41. 1:35lawsuit that was first filed back in
42. 1:372019 um this has been a black eye to
43. 1:40Apple has really reshaped The Narrative
44. 1:43uh the way that many people see the
45. 1:45company and I I think they really want
46. 1:47to put this case behind them is it just
47. 1:49people in America who they were EAS
48. 1:51dropping on or allegedly EAS dropping on
49. 1:54or is it or is it worldwide and and how
50. 1:56would we know if if we've been affected
51. 2:00I am so sorry to ask you to repeat I'm
52. 2:02right by the airport and a and a big wor
53. 2:06say that one more time yeah of course I
54. 2:07was just wondering if it's just people
55. 2:09in America or is it people worldwide
56. 2:12that might have been affected and how
57. 2:13would we
58. 2:15know yeah I mean the way that we know is
59. 2:18actually quite interesting there's an
60. 2:20anecdote that I can share from the lead
61. 2:21plaintiff in this case who said that her
62. 2:24daughter who was a minor had been having
63. 2:28discussions having convers ations about
64. 2:30some of her favorite Brands so Air
65. 2:33Jordans came up uh Olive Garden which is
66. 2:36a large restaurant chain here in the
67. 2:38United States and that in short order um
68. 2:41her daughter started being served up ads
69. 2:43for those very same brands in saari
70. 2:46which is the browser that Apple owns and
71. 2:49operates um so the the pitch to
72. 2:52Consumers as part of this settlement is
73. 2:55that in the US to my understanding it's
74. 2:58really just American consumers that are
75. 3:00affected by this pending the approval of
76. 3:02a US District Judge that uh consumers
77. 3:05here will get up to
78. 3:07$20 per device with some caveats for $20
79. 3:11per device um if they owned one of the
80. 3:14the devices affected whether it's an
81. 3:15iPhone or an iPad and so forth uh that's
82. 3:18tens of millions of people uh who could
83. 3:21be getting checks in the mail Lily thank
84. 3:24you very much for that plenty more on
85. 3:26that story on the BBC