Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit after it was accused of eavesdropping via virtual assistant Siri.
The lawsuit alleged Siri can be accidentally activated and thus record customer’s conversations without their consent, and that Apple violated its users’ privacy by sending those recordings to third parties.
As reported by San Francisco Chronicle, the class action lawsuit, filed in 2019, includes an allegation that the lead plaintiff and her daughter were both recorded without their consent and were subsequently served targeted ads on Safari after talking about products including Air Jordans and Olive Garden. Another plaintiff claimed he received ads for a surgical treatment after discussing it privately with his doctor.
In the preliminary settlement filed on Tuesday night in the Oakland, California federal court, Apple denied any wrongdoing as well as claims it “recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete, conversations recorded as the result of a Siri activation” without consent.
Each claimant, who must be in the U.S., could be paid up to $20 per Siri-enabled device they owned between 2014 and 2019. However, the settlement still requires approval from U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in Oakland.
Class members are estimated in the tens of millions, but as Reuters points out, the $95 million is about nine hours of profit for Apple, whose net income was $93.74 billion in its 2024 fiscal year.
As part of the agreement, Apple will confirm it has permanently deleted any recordings made before October 2019, and will provide clearer instructions for users who wish to opt into data-sharing for Siri improvements.
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 case.
Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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