Apple

Apple to pay $95M to settle claims of Siri eavesdropping on customers

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a civil lawsuit that alleges the privacy-focused company used its virtual assistant Siri to eavesdrop on people using its iPhones and other popular devices. The proposed settlement, which was filed Tuesday in a federal court in Oakland, California, would resolve a five-year-old lawsuit alleging that Apple secretly activated Siri to record conversations for over a decade, CBS News reported Thursday. Apple is not acknowledging any wrongdoing in the settlement, which still requires approval from US District Judge Jeffrey White.  Lawyers involved in the case have proposed holding a court hearing in Oakland on Feb.14 to review the terms. If approved, the settlement would allow tens of millions of consumers who owned iPhones and other Apple devices between Sept. 17, 2014 and the end of last year to file claims. Each eligible consumer could receive up to $20 per Siri-enabled device covered by the settlement, though the payment amount may vary depending on the number of claims submitted. Court documents estimate that only 3% to 5% of eligible consumers are likely to file claims. ​​​​​​​Eligible consumers will be restricted to seeking compensation for a maximum of five devices.

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Apple faces lawsuit for allegedly spying on workers

 US tech giant Apple is facing a lawsuit for allegedly spying on its employees using company-managed devices such as iPhones. Workers using personal Apple devices must link their iCloud accounts to the company, from which Apple allegedly collects various data from off-duty employees, such as location, claimed Amar Bhakta, who has been working in Apple’s digital advertising division since 2020, in a lawsuit filed on Sunday. In his lawsuit, Bhakta claimed that workers’ personal devices, including iPhones, were installed with proprietary internal software on company grounds, where the devices are “subject to search by Apple.” Apple allegedly violated California law by requiring its employees to agree to a policy allowing the company to “engage in physical, video, and electronic surveillance” of its employees,” he added. “For Apple employees, the Apple ecosystem is not a walled garden. It is a prison yard. A panopticon where employees, both on and off duty, are subject to Apple’s all-seeing eye,” US-based tech news website The Verge reported on Monday, citing court documents. He alleged that Apple restricts employees’ speech by prohibiting them from discussing their working conditions and wages, as well as their political activity. “We strongly disagree with these claims and believe they lack merit,” Apple spokesperson Josh Rosenstock said in a statement to The Verge.

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Apple releases 1st public version of Apple Intelligence

 Apple on Monday released the first public version of its much-anticipated artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Apple Intelligence. Apple Intelligence is available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac through a free software update with the launch of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. “Users can now tap into Apple Intelligence to refine their writing; summarize notifications, mail, and messages; experience a more natural and capable Siri; remove distracting objects from images with Clean Up; and more,” the company said in a blog post. The newly released AI, in addition, can create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate tasks, it added. “Apple Intelligence is generative AI in a way that only Apple can deliver, and we’re incredibly excited about its ability to enrich our users’ lives,” said CEO Tim Cook. “Apple Intelligence builds on years of innovation in AI and machine learning to put Apple’s generative models at the core of our devices, giving our users a personal intelligence system that is easy to use — all while protecting their privacy,” he added. The digital assistant Siri, moreover, becomes more natural, flexible, and deeply integrated into the system experience with Apple Intelligence, according to the company. Siri, with richer language-understanding capabilities, can now answer questions about the features and settings of Apple products, while users can learn everything from how to take a screen recording to how to easily share a Wi-Fi password, it added. To use Apple Intelligence, users need an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max or any iPhone 16 model.

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