Apple Agrees to Pay $95 Million Settlement for Siri Privacy Violations

What Happened?

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million in a class-action settlement that alleged private Siri conversations were inadvertently recorded and listened to by third-party contractors.

Michael Liedtke of the Associated Press reported:

‘The proposed settlement filed in an Oakland, California, federal court would resolve a 5-year-old lawsuit revolving around allegations that Apple surreptitiously activated Siri to record conversations through iPhones and other devices equipped with the virtual assistant for more than a decade.’

While Apple doesn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing in the proposed settlement, the alleged privacy violations are a blow to Apple’s reputation, especially after Apple CEO Tim Cook has often referred to privacy as ‘a fundamental human right.’

Why it Matters

According to the Cecily Mauran of Mashable:

‘The lawsuit centers around customer complaints that Siri was unintentionally activated and a 2019 report from a whistleblower via The Guardian that Apple contractors “heard voice recordings while testing for quality control. This included ‘confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex,” according to the investigation. Siri is only supposed to activate upon hearing the wake word “hey Siri,” but there were reported instances of Siri being triggered by other things — such as the sound of a zipper, an Apple Watch being raised in a certain way, and hearing a voice.’

An Apple spokesman told the Guardian in 2019:

‘A small portion of Siri requests are analyzed to improve Siri and dictation. User requests are not associated with the user’s Apple ID. Siri responses are analyzed in secure facilities and all reviewers are under the obligation to adhere to Apple’s strict confidentiality requirements. The company added that a very small random subset, less than 1% of daily Siri activations, are used for grading, and those used are typically only a few seconds long.’

While one percent sounds small, Siri is available on over 500 million devices worldwide. Siri has almost 90 million users in the United States alone, and the average user activates Siri twice a day. That means millions of users’ voice recordings are potentially being listened to without their knowledge.

Apple stated the purpose of listening to snippets of recordings was to help Siri become more effective and accurate. But the program by which the company acquired and utilized those recordings has now been suspended.

The company also stated that user identification information is not associated with any of the previously used recordings.

How it Affects You

Apple is not the only technology company that listens to users.

Google and Amazon also have similar programs. If the settlement is approved, millions of individuals who owned Apple devices from 2014 through the end of 2024 could be eligible to file a claim to receive a portion of that settlement.

The average amount received by each consumer would be approximately $20 U.S. dollars.