In January 2025, Apple settled a class-action lawsuit that made some serious allegations about Siri privacy. The suit claimed that Apple used Siri to spy on customers without their consent, and that Apple then shared Siri data with advertisers.
Apple categorically denied these claims, stating that Siri “has been engineered to protect user privacy and is the most private digital assistant. 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.”
Nevertheless, the settlement led some news outlets to make their own assertions about Siri. Concerned users may wish to tweak their privacy settings. You can even turn Siri off altogether if you don’t use it.
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If you do use Siri, but you just want to make it a bit more private, you can disable voice activation and analytics.
First, disable voice activation—also known as “Hey, Siri.” On some newer Apple products, Siri can even be invoked by simply saying “Siri.”
Unfortunately, there’s no voiceprint verification, meaning that anyone—not just the device owner—can activate Siri using the wake word or phrase. This means that other people near your device can potentially use Siri to perform actions without your consent. (In the past, researchers have even successfully invoked Siri voice activation using lasers and inaudibly high-pitched audio.)
To turn off voice activation, first open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad (or System Settings on a Mac). Then go to (depending on your device) “Apple Intelligence & Siri” or “Siri”.
On an iPhone or iPad, tap on either “Talk & Type to Siri” or “Talk to Siri”. Then set the feature to Off.
On a Mac, click on the “Listen for” menu and select Off.
At that same screen, you can also completely disable Siri altogether.
On an iPhone or iPad, toggle off the other option (or options). On every device, this includes “Press Side Button for Siri”. And if you have a device that supports Apple Intelligence, you’ll have one more setting to disable: “Type to Siri”.
On a Mac, simply click on the slider next to “Siri” to turn it off completely. All other options below it in the Siri Requests section will become grayed out.
Next, you’ll want to disable Analytics related to Siri. This will prevent your device from sharing audio recordings and transcripts with Apple.
From the main Settings screen, scroll down to Privacy & Security and tap or click on it. Then scroll down to Analytics & Improvements and tap or click on it. From here, you can disable “Improve Siri & Dictation”. If you prefer, you can disable all options on this screen; all the sliders should be toggled to the left (off) position.
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