Apple Consents to a $95 Million payment in the Siri Listening Lawsuit Settlement
Apple Consents to a $95 Million payment in the Siri Listening Lawsuit Settlement
Apple has agreed to dish out $95 million to settle a protracted class action lawsuit that accused the tech giant of illicitly eavesdropping on consumers' chats via its Siri virtual assistant, subsequently passing on fragments of those secret conversations to human evaluators.
The lawsuit was first lodged in 2019 following a tip-off to The Guardian by a whistleblower indicating that third-party workers contracted by Apple to assess Siri's replies sometimes gathered private conversations—from doctors and patients to individuals involved in intimate activities or purchasing prohibited substances. Although Apple maintained that Siri only activated its listening feature upon recognizing its wake word—"Hey Siri"—The Guardian reported that the assistant inadvertently switched on and commenced recording chats in response to similar terms and even the sound of zippers.
Fumiko Lopez, the principal plaintiff in the class action lawsuit, alleged that Apple equipment inappropriately recorded her daughter, a minor, discussing businesses like Olive Garden and Air Jordans before displaying advertisements for those brands on Apple's Safari browser. Other lead plaintiffs claimed that their Siri-equipped devices activated the listening mode without any explicit command—"Hey Siri"—during intimate bedroom conversations or medical consultations.
In their complaint, the plaintiffs condemned the privacy intrusions as particularly egregious given that Apple has lately emphasized device privacy as a key marketing aspect, projecting its devices as privacy-conscious. For instance, an Apple advertisement at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show asserted "What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone."
The proposed settlement, submitted to the California federal district court on Tuesday, caters to individuals who owned Siri-enabled devices from September 17, 2014, to December 31, 2024, and whose private conversations were recorded as a result of an unintended Siri activation. Compensation amounts will be proportionate to the number of Apple devices that improperly initiated a listening session owned by each class member.
Additionally, Apple agreed to confirm that they had erased recordings gathered by Siri before October 2019 and established a webpage to instruct customers on how to opt-in to Siri's Improve feature, which permits the company to access and evaluate audio recordings for quality assurance.
Apple did not promptly reply to a request for comment.
Following the publication of The Guardian's report, Apple briefly halted all human scrutiny of Siri replies and acknowledged that "we haven't been fully honoring our high standards." The company revealed it would re-commence human review after executing software updates and that going forward, assessors would receive computer-generated transcripts instead of the audio itself, while only Apple employees, devoid of third-party contractors, would conduct the evaluations.
The settlement allows Apple to allocate $95 million towards individuals who owned tech devices with Siri from 2014 to 2024, as their private conversations were inadvertently recorded due to Siri activations. In the future, Apple plans to improve Siri's privacy measures, ensuring that human evaluators only access computer-generated transcripts instead of the actual audio recordings.