Jan 8 (Reuters) - Apple ( AAPL ) clarified on Wednesday

that it has never sold the data collected by its Siri voice

assistant or used it to create marketing profiles, just days

after settling a case in which it faced such accusations.

The iPhone maker last week paid $95 million to settle a

class action lawsuit in which plaintiffs alleged it routinely

recorded their private conversations after they activated Siri

unintentionally, and disclosed these conversations to third

parties such as advertisers.

Voice assistants typically react when people use "hot words"

such as "Hey, Siri."

The company denied those claims and did not admit to them in

its settlement last week, in which tens of millions of Apple ( AAPL )

customers may receive up to $20 per Siri-enabled device, such as

iPhones and Apple Watches.

"Apple ( AAPL ) has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles,

never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to

anyone for any purpose," Apple ( AAPL ) said on Wednesday.

Apple ( AAPL ) issued the statement after social media users and

commentators interpreted the settlement as confirmation that the

allegations were true.

In its statement, the Cupertino, California-based company

said that certain features require real-time input from Apple ( AAPL )

servers and it is only in such cases that Siri uses as little

data as possible to deliver an accurate result.

"Apple ( AAPL ) does not retain audio recordings of Siri interactions

unless users explicitly opt in to help improve Siri, and even

then, the recordings are used solely for that purpose," Apple ( AAPL )

said, adding that it will continue developing technologies to

make Siri even more private.

A similar lawsuit on behalf of users of Google's

Voice Assistant is pending in the San Jose, California federal

court. The plaintiffs are represented by the same law firms as

in the Apple ( AAPL ) case.