Siri v EU: Petition launches to protest European decision
Apple has said it cannot launch Siri AI in the EU because local regulators make it impossible to do so while still protecting customer privacy. Europeans are launching petitions in protest.
That is because the European Commission have taken an extreme view in enforcing the regulations carried in the Digital Markets Act, which is local law that seems to have been custom made to use against US companies.
The compromise question
In this case, the law seems to be being poorly applied, with regulators not prepared to find a constructive compromise that enables SiriAI to launch while also providing something like parity to third party services and also supporting customer privacy.
Apple had suggested such a system, Trusted System Agent. The company describes this as a privacy-preserving intermediary that would let other virtual assistants access the same capabilities as Siri AI without giving them access to customer data.
(It is important to note that Apple’s systems can work with customer data without Apple ever once getting hold of that information, but Europe wants it to provide competitors with the core information despite that).
Please sign up to get all the latest Apple news at The Core TLDR Apple News on Substack.
Apple even offered an 18-month phased rollout plan. For reasons that probably make no sense to anyone really, the European Commission rejected both proposals. It then subsequently failed to take any responsibility for its decision.
Announcing that it will be unable to ship Siri AI in the EU, Apple said, “Apple will continue working to bring these features to the European Union as safely as possible. However, given the clear dangers to EU users and the regulators’ failure to acknowledge these risks, there is currently no timeline for Siri AI’s availability in the EU on iOS and iPadOS.”
Apple users in Europe push back
Apple’s European customers aren’t happy about this and the first of what I predict will be many pan-European petitions against the regulatory decision has appeared online, though it only has a couple of hundred signatures at this time.
The Siri4EU petition declares, “we refuse the false choice between open markets and private devices. A rulebook worthy of Europe protects both – and a company worthy of our trust builds for both.” It was created by Italian software engineer, Lorenzo Ferrante.
It also demands the regulation protects customers rather than limit feature availability or damage privacy. “We are not asking for an exception,” the petition states. “We are asking Apple and EU regulators to sit at the same table and define a safe, privacy-preserving path – and to do it now.”
If you are in Europe you can lend your voice to this petition. If you come across similar petitions please add them in comments below.
You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky, LinkedIn, Mastodon and The Core.
