Back in the day, any time a friend told me they thought their voice assistant might be secretly listening in on their private conversations, I was one of the people telling them it was all in their head. I’m certainly cynical enough about Big Tech’s privacy motives in many respects, but I just assumed the corporations knew everything about us already.
I should have been more skeptical. In 2019, Apple faced a backlash when we found out that Siri recordings were being reviewed by third-party contractors, sometimes capturing private moments without users realizing it. In a creepier twist, a lawsuit later alleged that Siri had been recording even without activation and that Apple had improperly used the data. Apple denied wrongdoing but settled the case in 2024 for $95 million.