Apple To Pay Millions In Siri Privacy Lawsuit

Apple has just agreed to pay US$ 95 million in cash payout to settle a proposed class action lawsuit alleging privacy violations tied to the Siri voice assistant. Plaintiffs said the alleged privacy violations took place over a 10-year period from September 2014 to December 31, beginning when Apple introduced the "Hey, Siri" voice activation feature.

The lawsuit alleges Apple recorded snippets of private and confidential conversations when Siri was unintentionally activated, which were then shared with third parties, such as human reviewers and advertisers.

The company has denied any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

After The Guardian reported in 2019 that Apple contractors frequently overheard portions of private conversations while reviewing Siri recordings for quality control, Apple issued a rare apology and announced changes to how it graded user interactions with the voice assistant.

"As a result of our review, we realize we haven't been fully living up to our high ideals, and for that we apologize," the company said in 2019.

The class-action lawsuit was filed against Apple in the wake of The Guardian's report.

Eligible class members, estimated to be in the tens of millions, can receive up to US$ 20 per Siri-enabled device, according to a preliminary settlement filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

The proposed settlement defines eligible class members as "all individual current or former owners or purchasers of a Siri Device, who reside in the United States and its territories." They also must be willing to declare under oath that Apple recorded their confidential conversations while Siri was inadvertently activated.

The size of each individual payout will fluctuate depending on how many eligible Siri-enabled devices they own and how many total claimants there are.

Under the proposed settlement, Apple would be required to publish a webpage to explain how users can opt-in to improve Siri and what information will be stored. Additionally, Apple would have to confirm that it has permanently deleted individual audio recordings from Siri collected before October 2019.

It's now up to US District Judge Jeffrey White to approve the settlement. Lawyer fees for the plaintiffs could cost Apple an additional US$ 28.5 million and another US$ 1.1 million for litigation expenses, according to the court documents.