Apple moved to settle a five-year-old class action lawsuit over Siri privacy. Reuters reports that the proposed settlement was filed Tuesday in Oakland, California. The company agreed to pay $95 million to class members, estimated to be tens of millions of owners of Siri-enabled devices. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White must approve the settlement before it becomes official.
The lawsuit stems from a 2019 report that Apple’s quality control contractors could regularly hear sensitive information accidentally recorded by voice assistant “Hey Siri” functionality. The clips allegedly include medical information, criminal activity and even “sexual encounters.” Apple has denied any wrongdoing in agreeing to settle the case.
Two plaintiffs claimed that their inadvertently recorded mentions of Nike Air Jordans and Olive Garden restaurants led to them receiving advertisements for those products. After speaking with his doctor, another complainant said he received advertisements for a branded surgical treatment.
In a statement to Engadget, Apple outlined its Siri privacy protections and the reason for settling the case. “Siri was designed to protect user privacy from the beginning,” an Apple spokesperson wrote. “Siri data has never been used to create marketing profiles and it has never been sold to anyone for any purpose. Apple settled this case to avoid additional litigation so that we can move forward with concerns about third-party review that we previously addressed in 2019. We use Siri data to improve Siri, and we are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private.
Apple says that the data you choose to share with Siri is never used for advertising purposes, and the company has stressed that there is no evidence in this lawsuit (or anywhere else) that the company has done so. The assistant does as much learning as possible on the device and on modern devices – those equipped with 2018 A12 Bionic Chip or newer – process your audio entirely this way. The company added that Apple Intelligence does not train on user data.
After the original story broke more than five years ago, Apple highlighted its privacy protection levels and stressed that the recordings were not linked to Apple accounts. It also said its quality control teams studied the clips in “secure facilities” and were bound by “strict confidentiality agreements.”
After an internal review in 2019, Apple suspended the program and admitted that he did not “fully respect” his ideals. The company started reviewing Siri recordings again soon after, but with some significant changes. It would seem fired hundreds of quality control contractors. It changed its policy so that only Apple employees can view private Siri data – connected to a random ID number, not your Apple account. (And the company says it takes steps to remove any recordings triggered inadvertently). It also started force users to register sharing Siri recordings or transcriptions.
You can check if you registered from your device. Head to Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvements > Improve Siri & Dictation. You can also view and delete all transcripts stored in the same location. (If you don’t see this option, you probably haven’t been registered.)
Reuters notes that the $95 million in cash on offer represents about nine hours of profit for the company. (Nice job if you can get it.) The class period under the settlement runs from September 17, 2014 — the date Apple launched “Hey Siri” in iOS 8 — until December 31, 2024. If you owned a Siri-enabled mobile product during that time (and Judge White approves the settlement), you could get up to $20 per device. However, you will need to join the class, and it is not yet clear how to do this.
Updated, January 6, 2025, 11:57 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with a statement from Apple and additional context.
