Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 3 December 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Data Collection by Digital Assistants: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Gary Davis:

I thank the Deputy for the question. As I mentioned, Siri has been available to our users since 2011. It is a service that a user needs to enable. It is not automatically on. Since the very beginning, Siri has been a privacy by design feature. It has always been the case that when one enables Siri, it is associated only with a random identifier generated by one's device, an identifier that Apple cannot link to one's identity. The identifier is such that the things one says to Siri are not linked to one's name, Apple ID, telephone number, email address, or anything of that nature. We worked extremely hard to ensure that Siri should just work in the way that the Deputy talked about, because we agree with him. The user should get the very best privacy without having to make a choice or a setting choice.

In response to the public concerns in relation to the audio grading-----