Apple agrees to settle 2019 Siri privacy lawsuit for $95 million

Apple moved to I’m settling a five-year Siri privacy class action lawsuit. Reuters reports that the proposed settlement was filed Tuesday in Oakland, California. The company agreed to pay $95 million to class members, who are estimated to be tens of millions of owners of Siri 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 may regularly hear sensitive information accidentally recorded by the voice assistant Hey Siri feature.. The clips are said to include medical information, criminal activities and even “sexual encounters”. Reuters says Apple denies wrongdoing by agreeing to settle the case.

Engadget has reached out to Apple for comment. We’ll update this story if we hear back.

Two plaintiffs allege that their inadvertent recorded mentions of Nike Air Jordans and Olive Garden restaurants resulted in advertisements for those products. After discussing this with his doctor, another claimant said he received advertisements for a branded surgical treatment.

After the original story broke five-plus years ago, Apple emphasized its layers of privacy protections and emphasized that the recordings were not tied to Apple accounts. It also said its quality control teams reviewed the clips in “secure facilities” and were bound by “strict confidentiality agreements.”

After an internal Apple review stopped the program and admitted that he did not “fully measure up” to his ideals. The company returned to reviewing Siri’s recordings soon after — but with some big changes. It is reported fired hundreds of quality control contractors and changed its policy so that only Apple employees can view Siri’s private data. It also moved to delete unintentionally triggered audio clips and started requiring users to opt-in to share recordings or transcripts with Siri.

Reuters notes that the proposed $95 million in cash amounts to about nine hours of profit for the company. (Nice work if you can get it.) The settlement class period runs from September 17, 2014. — when Apple launched “Hey Siri” in iOS 8 — until December 31, 2024. If you owned a Siri-enabled mobile product during that period (and Judge White approved the settlement), you could receive up to $20 per device. You’ll need to join the class though, and it’s still not clear how to do that.