Apple's claimed stance towards user privacy is admirable. Unfortunately, it is riddled with compromises and beholden to expediency, which substantially undermines the moral high road that Apple wants to appear to be a champion of.
The European Commission spokesperson: "The decision not to allow Siri AI in the EU is Apple's and Apple's only"
For the benefit of those who might not be aware, Apple lobbed a surprise at the end of its WWDC 2026 keynote presentation on Monday, when it disclosed that the all-new Siri AI won't launch in the EU and China on iOS and iPadOS, but would still be available on Macs and the Apple Vision Pro, as these two platforms are not regulated by the EU's DMA.
To say that this announcement came as a surprise would be an understatement. In a subsequent presentation, Apple's Greg Joswiak revealed that the tech giant had done everything in its power to avoid just such a scenario, going so far as to reveal its the architectural plans for Siri AI to the European Commission months in advance.
In Apple's books, the European Commission is to blame for the Siri AI-related impasse. The Commission, however, thinks that Apple is the proverbial instigator, with the EC's spokesperson noting in a recent press conference that "the decision not to allow Siri AI in the EU is Apple's and Apple's only," going on to note that nothing in the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) "prevents Apple from introducing new products in the EU."
The issue, however, arises from the fact that the EU does not want Apple closing the market to its competitors, so to say. According to the EC spokesperson, Apple does not get to "choose which AI tools our EU citizens get to use or not."
Apple claims it can't accede to the EU's demands of enabling interoperability of AI agents due to privacy concerns, and has constructed its architecture in a manner that prevents even Google from snooping in on the AI-related inferencing within Google Cloud.
Interestingly, Apple has had no such qualms in China, where iCloud data is regularly stored on government-owned servers, replete with locally stored keys that theoretically allow Chinese government access to any data snippet.
Of course, it remains to be seen how Apple structures the Siri AI in China. For now, it is claiming that the combo of Private Cloud Compute and "NVIDIA Confidential Computing with NVIDIA GPUs," referring to a heightened privacy state within those GPUs, is a necessary component of its ethos.
The EU, however, wants a multi-agent Siri, where users get to decide which AI agent they are comfortable with. This is not a quarrel that'll resolve easily or quickly. We are looking at months or even years before an accetpable resolution is found. In the meantime, Apple can continue its grandstanding in the EU, while acquiescing to every expansive demand by the Chinese government.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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