- Apple has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit over Siri complaints
- Victims reported brands mentioned in private conversations later appearing in targeted advertisements on their Apple devices
- Tens of millions may be affected, but Apple didn't admit wrongdoing
Update 01/06/25: Apple has provided us with the following statement regarding the lawsuit:
"Siri has been engineered to protect user privacy from the beginning. Siri data has never been used to build marketing profiles and it has never been sold to anyone for any purpose.
Apple settled this case to avoid additional litigation so we can move forward from concerns about third-party grading that we already addressed in 2019.
We use Siri data to improve Siri, and we are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private."
It added the changes made to Siri in 2019 by Apple include only retaining "computer-generated" transcripts of Siri interactions (that users can delete) by default, with the user experience improvement program allowing Apple employees to listen to audio recordings requiring an opt-in.
Original article follows:
Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a class action lawsuit after its device owners claimed Siri disclosed private conversations to advertisers.
Per Reuters, the case in the Oakland, California federal court, Lopez et al v. Apple Inc, revolves around unintentional activation of Siri during phone calls, resulting in Apple disclosing snippets of conversation to advertisers.
Despite voice assistants usually only activating with a wake word or phrase (think “Alexa” or, here, “Hey, Siri”), plaintiffs in the lawsuit claimed they had been served advertisements for brand name products in what they believed were confidential conversations.
Siri privacy lawsuit
The class action period ranges from September 17, 2014, the introduction of the “Hey, Siri” wake phrase, through to December 31, 2024. Tens of millions of people could receive up to $20 per Siri-equipped device, including iPhones and Apple Watches.
Apple did not initially respond when approached for comment on the settlement by Reuters, though it has explicitly denied wrongdoing in court.
Reuters notes $95 million is just nine hours worth of profit for Apple, making this latest class action against a big tech company yet another example of such actions being factored in as a business cost.
Elsewhere, a case against Google in relation to its own Voice Assistant is ongoing in the San Jose, California Federal Court, and it’s hard to imagine that the outcome won’t be similarly inconsequential.
