Apple to pay $95 million to settle Siri listening case

Apple has agreed to pay $95m (£77m) to settle a lawsuit alleging some of its devices eavesdropped on people without their permission.

The tech giant has been accused of eavesdropping on its customers through its Siri virtual assistant.

The plaintiffs also allege that voice recordings were shared with advertisers.

Apple, which has not admitted any wrongdoing, has been reached for comment.

C advance arrangement, the tech firm denies any wrongdoing, and claims it “recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete conversations recorded as a result of Siri activation” without consent.

Apple's lawyers also say they will confirm that they have “permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected by Apple prior to October 2019.”

But the plaintiffs say the tech firm recorded people activating the virtual assistant unintentionally — without using the phrase “Hey Siri” to wake it up.

They say advertisers who receive the records can then search for keywords in them to better target ads.

Lead plaintiff Fumiko Lopez claims she and her daughter were recorded without their consent.

They claim they were shown targeted ads after talking about products including Air Jordans.

Apple has proposed a decision date of February 14 in the Northern California court.

Class actions work by a small number of people going to court on behalf of a larger group.

If successful, the money won is paid out to all claimants.

According to the court documents, each plaintiff — who must be based in the U.S. — can receive up to $20 for a Siri-enabled device they owned between 2014 and 2015. and 2019

In that case, the lawyers could pick up 30 percent of the fee plus expenses — which comes to just under $30 million.

By settling, Apple not only denies wrongdoing, but also avoids the risk of facing a lawsuit, which could potentially mean a much larger payout.

The California Company earned $94.9 billion within the three months until 28 September 2024.

Apple has been involved in a number of class action lawsuits in recent years.

In January 2024 started paying in a $500 million lawsuit which claims it is deliberately slowing down the iPhone in the US.

In March, he agreed to paid $490 million in a class action brought by Norfolk County Council in the United Kingdom.

And in November the consumer group Which? launched a class-action lawsuit against Apple, accusing it of ripping off customers through its own iCloud service.

The same law firm is suing Google in a similar class action, accusing it of eavesdropping on customers using Google devices.

That case is currently going through the same court in Northern California.