Why does Siri require my iPhone to be unlocked first?

To run most apps on your phone you need to unlock it. That is a basic security feature; it’s there so someone doesn’t just pick up your phone and run apps. Thus, to run any app that might contain personal data, such as email, messages, notes, etc, the phone must be unlocked. You can ask Siri for the weather, because weather data are not personal. But you can’t ask Siri to read your messages, or show your photos, unless it is unlocked, because if you could ANYONE could; just pick up your phone and say, "Hey Siri, read my messages”, or “Hey Siri, transfer $10,000 from my Apple Cash to John Doe"

Steve.Knepp wrote:

That option is selected in my settings, however sometimes I have to unlock my phone while other times I don’t.

it just happened within five minutes of each other. I had my phone on the kitchen counter, my Bluetooth headset on my head while I was in the bedroom and told Siri to call a particular contact and she did. That contact wasn’t available so I ended the call without leaving a voice message. Again, with the phone still on the counter and me being 5 feet away from it I pushed the button on my headset and told Siri to make another call and she said I had to unlock my iPhone first.

I really don’t get it.

Well, let me help you “get it”. If Siri needs to get private information off your phone it has to be unlocked. So the first time it was still unlocked, and the second time the phone had timed out and locked.

Thus, “Siri, what is tomorrow’s weather” does not require your phone to be unlocked, but “Siri, call my mother” does, because that information is in your personal contacts. You wouldn’t want it to be different; otherwise, someone who found your phone or just picked it up when your attention was elsewhere you ask Siri almost anything personal, like “where is my date tonight?"

Siri does not provide Voice Recognition on the iPhone to identify you. The set up for Siri is used to weed out some false activations, but in no way is it for positive identification. The Home Pod does offer Voice Recognition to identify a user, but that is because Face ID is not an option. On your phone anyone can ask Siri for personal information on your device after it is unlocked with FaceID, it makes no difference if you are asking or not. Whereas, on the Home Pod, the personal information is only given if it recognizes your voice.

For a call to go through on the Home Pod, that can be done with it recognizing your voice. For a call to go through on your phone, it will require Face ID, as there is no voice recognition used to identify it is actually you. I know your issue is not with the HomePod, but just wanted to clear up that it is the only device that truly has voice recognition.

Ran an update this morning and now siri refused to open maps with the phone locked while using airpods. I had to unlock the phone and while talking to the phone told siri to open maps. The command went thru and maps opened bit it had prompts as if it was being opened for the first time(welcome to maps tips window). While that was going on simultaneously siri’s little bubble circle was at the bottom of the screen and behind that circle were oval circles showing a backlog of a whole bunch of notifications of what siri was saying including the multiple “you need to unlock your iphone” messages. So i promptly went thru every app on my phone and opened them to find any other apps that apparently think they have never been opened before using siri and this seems to have solved the problem.

Siri does not have speaker recognition; it can’t distinguish you from anyone else speaking, except for "Hey Siri". And you don’t train it to recognize you; training is to recognize your accents. And you can also invoke Siri by holding the side button, and that will work for any speaker. Speaker recognition would require hours of training, not 2 minutes.

I don’t see what facial recognition has to do with Siri; FaceID cannot be fooled; it recognizes you, and only you.

Go to FACE ID & Passcode, enter to passcode and then scroll down to VOICE DIAL and enable it (toggle to ON). That's it.

Go to Settings,

Notifications (allow),

Scroll to Messages,

Scroll down to Show Previews, & set it to ALWAYS

Good Luck! 🍀 I hope this helps!

sorry I forgot to add 1 step:

Settings

Notifications

Messages

Allow Notifications and scroll down to Show Previews and set it to ALWAYS

Good Luck! I hope this helps!

Try going to

settings

accessibility

and set up voice control

tadzooks wrote:

Why does Siri tell me to unlock my iPhone first?

******* BEFORE YOU RESPOND *******

iPhone 13 Pro Max 256GB 16.4.1 (a)

yes I have reset my phone

yes I have reset my network connection

yes I have turned Siri off, and back on

yes I have reset Siri

yes I went through retraining my voice

yes I have a valid signal on my phone (I know the iPhone test code, validated RSSI, normally around -70dbm)

yes my Wi-Fi is good (Business SLA and happens where ever I am at)

Siri will still say, "you’ll need to unlock your iPhone first"

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Just an FYI on training Siri for your voice. On iPhone, training Siri to your voice only lets Siri recognize your manner of speech. But that doesn't prevent anyone else from waking Siri on your iPhone. On HomePod, Siri can be told to only respond to your voice. That doesn't work for iPhone or iPad. And this would certainly be why you were told you needed to unlock your iPhone, when it was in another room and the screen was locked.

I don’t know how long you have been using an iPhone but I agree with the OP. I used to be able to send messages while driving with Siri while my phone is locked. But not anymore. I have made adjustments so Siri will read me received messages but I can’t reply while driving. Which is ridiculous.

And you are wrong. I can’t use “hey siri” to activate it on anyone else’s phones nearby. When I am with others that also have iPhones and I say “hey siri”, only MY Siri responds. Heck, even with my iPad right next to my iPhone, Siri defaults to my phone and my iPad Siri instantly goes quiet.

So I don’t understand why you are suggesting otherwise.

I got this problem on an update a couple of years back. When I'm working on the coffee van and the phone is in its wall bracket, I can no longer ask Siri to read back texts, so I can hear customer orders. I am trying to understand if Apple have done this to encourage me to buy Ear Buds or Headphones, but I can't wear them when I'm making coffee and talking to customers anyway. I have also tried, at the suggestion of the people in the Apple Store in Brisbane, experimenting with Focus, but nothing has changed. So I'm stuck with it.

KryptonianAI wrote:

I don’t know how long you have been using an iPhone but I agree with the OP. I used to be able to send messages while driving with Siri while my phone is locked. But not anymore. I have made adjustments so Siri will read me received messages but I can’t reply while driving. Which is ridiculous.

And you are wrong. I can’t use “hey siri” to activate it on anyone else’s phones nearby. When I am with others that also have iPhones and I say “hey siri”, only MY Siri responds. Heck, even with my iPad right next to my iPhone, Siri defaults to my phone and my iPad Siri instantly goes quiet.

So I don’t understand why you are suggesting otherwise.

Let's see, you are arguing with a VERY senior member of this forum, who has more than 200,000 points here, after years and years and years of helping people with iPhone questions/problems. I guarantee if you want to challenge him on his knowledge and experience with iPhone, you will lose the challenge HUGELY.

But more to the point, your assertions are patently false. Siri does NOT recognize individual voices. I can walk up to ANY iPhone and say "Hey Siri" and if the user has enabled Siri, their phone will respond to my voice, whether their phone has EVER heard my voice.

Alright very senior guy, you are wrong. You can’t go up to any phone and say hey siri. It doesn’t work like that anymore. Now you train siri with “hey siri” phrases. Try doing this with someone who has not set up siri yet.

it will tell you to repeatedly say various phrases beginning with siri or hey siri.

and this was a very good way to unlock phones back in the day. It got disabled at some point!