Apple to pay $95 million to settle Siri privacy lawsuit

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit asserting that it violated users’ privacy by allowing its voice-activated Siri feature to record device owners' conversations and then share them with third parties, including company contractors and advertisers.

The settlement agreement, filed Tuesday, stemmed from a July 2019 report in The Guardian which cited an anonymous whistleblower who reported that Apple had been recording and sharing conversations, including those taped when device owners unintentionally engaged Siri.

The Guardian reported that Apple contractors “regularly” listened to the recordings, including “where there has been no utterance of a wake phrase [“Hey Siri”] or other device interaction,” according to the complaint. 

The conversations included “confidential conversations between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on,” The Guardian reported. 

The recordings are “accompanied by user data showing location, contact details and app data,” The Guardian report said. The proposed class action lawsuit was filed a month after the whistleblower’s account was published. 

Apple did not respond to a request for comment and has issued no press release on the settlement. The company denied wrongdoing as a settlement term.

The tech giant acknowledged the practice to The Guardian in 2019 but said that “user requests are not associated with the user’s Apple ID. Siri responses are analysed in secure facilities and all reviewers are under the obligation to adhere to Apple’s strict confidentiality requirements.”

Plaintiffs in the case said their statements to Siri triggered targeted advertising, according to Reuters, which reported that mentions of Air Jordan sneakers and Olive Garden restaurants led them to receive ads for the brands. Another plaintiff, Reuters said, received ads for a specific type of surgical treatment after asking his doctor about it.

Apple has long touted its commitment to privacy, a fact which the complaint seizes on, noting that the company even used Siri to obfuscate its privacy practices.

“If an individual were to ask Siri ‘Hey Siri, are you always listening’ Siri is programmed to respond: ‘I only listen when you’re talking to me,’” the complaint said.

Tens of millions of class members will receive as much as $20 for each Siri-enabled device they own, according to the settlement agreement.

Apple reported a net income of nearly $94 billion in the most recent fiscal year.