Does Siri send your requests to Apple? What Apple says, and how to check

Some do, and Apple says which. Apple's Siri privacy documentation is more specific than most people expect, so the useful answer is not yes or no but a short list: what stays on the phone, what goes to Apple, under which identifier, and how you can check on your own iPhone. Then how an assistant with no server at all compares.

What Apple says stays on the phone

Apple says that "the audio of your requests is processed entirely on your device whenever possible, unless you choose to share it with Apple." Speech recognition runs on the Neural Engine, and for many everyday requests, timers, alarms, opening apps, playing music, the whole request is handled locally. Apple's Siri privacy notice adds that "your device will indicate in Siri Settings whether the things you say are processed on your device and not sent to Apple servers."

What goes to Apple's servers

Requests that are not marked as on-device are sent to and processed on Apple's servers. Apple's Siri privacy notice says your request history is associated with "a random, device-generated identifier that rotates multiple times per hour and is not tied to your Apple Account or email address." The notice says Apple may keep that data "for up to two years to develop and improve Siri, Dictation, Search, and limited other language processing functionality," and that a small reviewed subset may be kept longer. On audio, the notice says: "Unless you opt in to Improve Siri and Dictation, your audio data is not stored by Apple." With Siri AI the setting is Improve Siri & Apple Intelligence, and Apple says that if you opt in, "Apple may store all of your interactions with Siri and Dictation, including the audio data and transcripts of what you say and type to Siri, and the response Siri provides." Location may be sent along with a request, Apple says, "to improve the accuracy of responses."

For Apple Intelligence, requests that exceed what the phone can do go to Private Cloud Compute, Apple's own servers running Apple silicon; since June 2026, Apple says, some new Apple Intelligence workloads also run as Private Cloud Compute on Google Cloud. Apple's stated guarantees are that personal data "must not be retained, including via logging or for debugging, after the response is returned to the user," that PCC "must not contain privileged interfaces that would enable Apple's site reliability staff to bypass PCC privacy guarantees," and that Apple will make "software images of every production build of PCC publicly available for security research." That is a real and unusual commitment. It is still, structurally, the first of the three meanings of private: the request leaves the phone, and a well-built system on the other end promises to handle it carefully. Orvena offers Private Cloud Compute too, as an optional Premium engine on iOS 27. Choose it and each answer sends the conversation to Apple's servers under those guarantees; health and financial data still ask first.

iOS 27 adds Siri AI, and Apple says "A dedicated Siri app uses iCloud to privately sync conversational history across a user's products." On iPhones in the EU, Apple did not ship Siri AI with iOS 27 and cites the Digital Markets Act; the details are in why Siri AI is not available in the EU.

How to check on your iPhone

1. Open Settings, then Siri, or Apple Intelligence & Siri on iOS 26. Apple shows there whether Siri processes speech on the device for your language.
2. On the same screen, Siri & Dictation History lets you delete the request history Apple holds for your device.
3. In Settings, Privacy & Security, Analytics & Improvements, the Improve Siri & Dictation switch, or Improve Siri & Apple Intelligence once Siri AI is set up, controls what Apple may keep. Apple says that when you turn these on, "you agree to let Apple store and review a sample of your audio recordings and transcripts," and that with Improve Siri & Apple Intelligence "Apple can also use this data to train foundation models." iOS asks whether to opt in when you set up the phone, or the first time you use Siri, Dictation or Translate.
4. In Settings, Privacy & Security, App Privacy Report shows, for every app on your phone, which internet domains it contacted in the last seven days. It is the quickest way to see what any assistant, from any company, actually sends.
5. On the same screen, iOS also keeps an Apple Intelligence Report: Apple says "You can generate a report of requests your iPhone has sent to Private Cloud Compute," for the last 15 minutes or the last 7 days.

How an assistant with no server compares

Orvena runs its language model on the phone, so there is no Orvena server and no Orvena account, and the conversation itself never leaves unless you choose a cloud engine. With the on-device engines that is not a policy; there is nowhere for it to go. The network is used only for things that need the outside world, and only when you ask for them: a web search goes to the search provider, opening a page contacts that site, weather and travel times come from Apple's services, connected accounts such as Notion or GitHub talk to those services, and a cloud engine, Apple's Private Cloud Compute on iOS 27 or a model on your own key, runs only after you choose it and consent. In App Privacy Report, Orvena's entry should show only those: the download hosts while the model arrives, Apple's weather service if the Today page shows weather, duckduckgo.com on days you searched, sites you asked it to open, the services you connected, api.openai.com if you ran a live voice session with your own key, and openrouter.ai if you used a key or opened the Models screen, which fetches OpenRouter's public list of models at most once a day. If you chose Private Cloud Compute, each answer also goes to Apple's servers.

The practical differences follow from that. Siri runs Apple's own models, on the phone or on Apple's servers; Orvena lets you choose between an open-weight model you can inspect and, on iOS 27, Apple's own on-device model, and lets you add your own MCP servers. Having Siri check something later means building a Shortcuts automation; you can ask Orvena tonight to check tomorrow's weather against your first meeting at nine, and at nine it does, or reminds you with a notification and runs the check the moment you open it.

Where Siri is better

Siri is part of the operating system. It answers from the lock screen, it has a wake word, it works on every iPhone, and it never needed a 3.1 GB download. Orvena has no wake word of its own: you reach it by saying "Ask Orvena" to Siri, from Shortcuts or the Action Button, or by opening the app, and Ask Orvena works only while the iPhone is unlocked. It needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer with 8 GB of memory, and the 3.1 GB download unless you use Apple Intelligence on iOS 27. For quick system tasks, Siri is the right tool and Orvena does not try to replace it.

Which to use for what

Siri for timers, music, calls and anything from the lock screen. The two also work together: say "Ask Orvena" to Siri, and Orvena answers with its own tools, though the question then reaches Orvena through Apple's system. Orvena for what involves the contents of your life, your calendar, photos, health and files, for a real conversation in your own language, and for anything you want checked later.

Common questions

Does Siri record everything I say?

According to Apple, the audio of your requests is processed on the device whenever possible, unless you choose to share it, and Apple stores your audio only if you opt in to Improve Siri and Dictation, or Improve Siri and Apple Intelligence with Siri AI. Requests that need Apple's servers are sent under a rotating random identifier rather than your Apple Account.

Can I replace Siri with Orvena?

Not as the system assistant; iOS does not allow that. But you can say "Ask Orvena" to Siri. When Apple Intelligence or a cloud engine you chose can answer, the reply comes back where you asked, with up to three of the actions Orvena took and an "Open in Orvena" button; otherwise Orvena opens with your question. You can also put Orvena on the Action Button with the "Talk to Orvena" shortcut.

Does Orvena send anything to Apple?

Apple's weather service supplies the forecast on the Today page, which you can turn off in Settings, and any forecast you ask for. Place lookups and travel times come from Apple's services when you ask for them, and iOS downloads speech recognition models from Apple the first time you use a language. A question you ask through Siri or Shortcuts reaches Orvena through Apple's system. Your conversations are answered on the phone, unless you choose Private Cloud Compute, which sends each answer's conversation, and the tool results it needs, to Apple's servers; Apple says it doesn't keep them.