We've all heard it before, the popular conspiracy theory where most people are positive that our cell phones are recording and listening to our conversations. You may have been talking to your friend about travelling somewhere and then you go on your phone and there's an advertisement for flights to that destination, it's these reasons and more that make the theory more believable.
But after Apple received an inquiry from the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, they were forced to respond and their answer to the matter was a flat out "no."
“iPhone doesn’t listen to consumers, except to recognize the clear, unambiguous audio trigger ‘Hey Siri,'” the company said in its letter. The audio on your iPhone apparently runs on a “short buffer" and will only turn on when it hears a request asking for Siri.
“We believe privacy is a fundamental human right and purposely design our products and services to minimize our collection of customer data,” Apple’s director of federal governmental affairs, Timothy Powderly, added. “The customer is not our product, and our business model does not depend on vast amounts of personally identifiable information to enrich targeted profiles marketed to advertisers.”