Apple must pay $95 million for violating user privacy
The iPhone maker agreed to pay $95 million to settle a 2019 lawsuit alleging that its virtual assistant Siri violated Apple users' privacy by recording their conversations.
This Agreement applies to individuals residing in the United States, including current or former owners and purchasers of Siri-enabled devices, who have had confidential voice communications collected by Siri and/or shared with third parties as a result of Siri inadvertently being activated.
The timeframe of the agreement covers interactions that took place between September 17, 2014 and December 31, 2024. The agreement highlights the handling of personal audio information in the event of unintended Siri activation and related data being misused or shared beyond its intended scope.
Eligible individuals in the settlement can file claims for up to five Siri-enabled devices, including an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBook, iMac, HomePod, iPod touch, or Apple TV, provided that the devices have ever accidentally activated Siri during a conversation that was considered confidential or private and that the user did not intend to share with the virtual assistant.
Each individual can file up to five claims, with compensation of up to $20 per eligible device. This means a person could receive up to $100 if they own five affected devices.
Filing a complaint requires users to provide details about the affected device, when the issue occurred, and may include evidence verifying the unintended Siri activation issue.
The lawsuit against Apple stems from a 2019 report by The Guardian, which revealed that Apple's outside partners had been eavesdropping on users' private conversations through voice commands to Siri, as part of Apple's efforts to improve the quality and accuracy of its Siri virtual assistant.
However, the collection and sharing of this sensitive audio data has raised serious privacy concerns, as users are unaware that their conversations may be accessed and analyzed by third parties.
An amended complaint, filed in September 2021, alleges that Apple recorded private conversations that were accidentally triggered by Siri, and that this data was then disclosed to third-party advertisers.
The allegations highlight that this sensitive information may have been used for targeted advertising purposes, raising serious concerns about users' privacy and security of personal information.
However, Apple has denied the allegations, asserting that "there is no evidence or basis to connect the plaintiffs' receipt of targeted advertising and the hypothesis that Siri eavesdropped on their conversations."
The statement reflects Apple's firm stance on protecting its reputation for user privacy, while rejecting any speculation of wrongdoing related to its handling of voice data from Siri.
After the incident was exposed, Apple officially apologized, admitting that they had not "fully met the high standards we set for ourselves".
To fix the problem, Apple introduced an option that allows users to voluntarily participate in improving Siri, by allowing the system to learn from the audio patterns in their requests.
At the same time, Apple pledged to delete any recordings identified as being accidentally activated by Siri, to ensure that user privacy is respected and maintained at the highest level.
Since the incident, Apple has rolled out a series of privacy settings improvements across all of its software platforms, allowing users to proactively disable the collection of analytics data used to improve Siri and its dictation features.
Additionally, users can also completely delete their Siri interaction history, ensuring that their personal data is not stored or used in any way that they intended. Despite these important steps, Apple has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing in its settlement filing, emphasizing its commitment to user privacy and data security.
Apple isn’t the only major tech company facing lawsuits over the privacy of its virtual assistants. According to Reuters, a similar class action has been filed by users of Google’s voice assistant, accusing the search giant of violating users’ privacy by inadvertently recording and storing sensitive conversations.
The case is being heard in federal court in San Jose, California. Notably, the law firms representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Google are also the legal entities participating in and benefiting from Apple's lawsuit settlement.
This represents a growing trend of class-action lawsuits targeting major tech companies over their handling of voice data and user privacy, highlighting the legal challenges these companies face when deploying virtual assistant technologies.