Apple agrees to pay $95 million to resolve allegations of surveillance and privacy violations in a proposed class-action lawsuit. A class-action lawsuit claims that Apple captures and records voice conversations triggered unintentionally by Siri, subsequently sharing the resulting data with third-party advertising firms.
The two plaintiffs alleged that following conversations about products such as Air Jordan sneakers and Olive Garden, their accounts verified ads for these products; meanwhile, another individual reported receiving advertisements for a surgical procedure after discussing it privately with his doctor.
The lawsuit ensued following the publication of a report detailing the unintended activation of Siri, which had previously recorded and transcribed private conversations. Contractors employed by Apple were tasked with listening to Siri recordings, aiming to improve the virtual assistant’s capabilities, but they alleged hearing sensitive information, including confidential medical details, drug deals, and intimate moments, as well as other private matters.
Despite being open about the fact that select Siri recordings were reviewed by humans, Apple’s privacy policies at the time did not explicitly disclose the presence of human oversight in Siri’s analysis. Shoppers who brought a lawsuit against Apple alleged that the company failed to disclose to them that their conversations were frequently recorded without their consent, and they contended that had they been aware of this practice, they would not have purchased Apple devices.
While the initial lawsuit focused on Apple’s alleged nondisclosure, a subsequent complaint filed in February 2021 lacked specificity regarding the recorded data Apple supposedly accumulated. An amended critique targeted an unsettling aspect of Siri recordings utilized in “focused marketing”, which disturbingly escaped scrutiny and was permitted to proceed unabated.
Although there was no evidence suggesting Apple sold Siri recordings or data gathered from those recordings to advertisers, Apple’s long-standing privacy policies consistently emphasized that any information collected by Siri for improving its functionality was anonymized and not linked to an individual user.
Apple submits a settlement agreement, maintaining it has done nothing wrong and denies all plaintiffs’ claims, insisting that no basis exists for legal action. It settles to avoid further litigation costs.
The settlement has received preliminary court approval. Pursuant to the settlement agreement, all current or former homeowners or purchasers of Siri-enabled devices in the United States whose private or confidential communications were obtained by Apple between September 17, 2014, and December 31, 2024, are deemed class members and may be eligible for a compensation award.
Apple will establish a settlement website within 45 days to determine eligibility for participation, requiring the sharing of customer contact information for those who purchased devices equipped with Siri capabilities. Data collection is expected to continue until May 15, 2025, at which point the settlement process will be completed and disbursements made to qualified recipients. All class members will have the ability to file claims up to five Siri units, earning up to $20 per unit. The exact settlement cost will depend on the total number of legal claims that are submitted?
Following the 2019 controversy surrounding contractors listening to unintended Siri recordings, Apple suspended its Siri analysis program, allowing customers to delete and opt-out of their voice recordings being monitored. Apple has since shifted some Siri processing to occur locally on devices, thereby reducing the amount of data transmitted to its servers in subsequent updates.
