By Inti Landauro and Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS/CUPERTINO, California, June 9 (Reuters) – EU regulators slammed Apple on Tuesday for blaming EU tech rules for its decision not to roll out its upgraded assistant Siri AI in the European Union for now, saying they had rejected the company’s request for an 18-month exemption from its obligations.
The iPhone maker on Tuesday said Siri AI would not be available initially in the EU on iPhones or iPads and faulted the European Commission for refusing to engage constructively with them to ensure privacy and security on their devices.
It told regulators of its plans to introduce an intermediary over an 18-month period to allow virtual assistants to access Siri AI safely but the request was turned down.
Apple executives, at a briefing with reporters at Apple’s Cupertino, California, headquarters, said that virtual AI assistants would have unprecedented access to a wide swath of personal data on a user’s device, including virtually all of their communications.
Apple said it detailed its plans for Siri AI to EU regulators six months ago, along with a technical proposal to allow secure third-party access to that data.
“In essence, a commission that’s asking us to conduct a very risky experiment on many, many, many tens of millions of users,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s marketing chief, told reporters, “and we only want to ship these capabilities when we can do so safely.”
The commission repudiated Apple’s criticism.
“The decision not to roll out Siri AI in the EU is Apple’s and Apple’s only,” spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters in Brussels, saying there was nothing in the Digital Markets Act to stop the company from introducing new products in the EU.
“Apple was simply unable to develop interoperability solutions that meet essential EU privacy and security standards,” Regnier said.
“Instead of trying to find a suitable compliance solution, Apple simply made a request to the European Commission to be exempted from their interoperability obligations under the DMA – and this for at least 18 months. That’s not an option,” Regnier said.
Europe accounted for nearly 27% of Apple’s total sales in its last fiscal year. The company does not break out sales for the EU.
Apple said that the DMA had forced it to postpone the rollout of several features in the EU, including iPhone mirroring to Mac and live translation with AirPods as well as location-based features in Maps.
The DMA aims to rein in the power of Big Tech, give rivals more leeway to compete and consumers more choice.
DMA breaches can cost companies fines as much as 10% of their global annual turnover.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in Cuperitno, California, and Inti Landauro; Additional reporting by Arpan Daniel Varghese and Aditya Soni; Editing by Bart Meijer and Mark Porter)
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