Apple Settles Siri Eavesdropping Lawsuits for $95M

Apple has agreed to a $95 million settlement to compensate Siri virtual assistant users whose conversations were unlawfully recorded and analyzed without their consent by the company’s technology and external contractors.

Siri is a virtual assistant used in iPhones and other Apple products. It uses voice recognition and artificial intelligence (AI) to help Apple users answer questions and perform other digital tasks, such as opening apps, responding to messages, and learning users’ preferences over time.

In July 2019, an anonymous whistleblower revealed to The Guardian that Apple’s Siri product was secretly recording individuals without their consent, storing these conversations, and sharing them with contractors for review.

Although Apple eventually admitted to recording some conversations for purposes of analyzing and improving Siri’s dictation abilities, the company claimed that no information was tied to Apple user IDs or any other identifiable characteristics.

However, in a complaint (PDF) filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in August 2019, Fumiko Lopez claims that the information collected by Apple was allegedly stored and passed on to third parties who would analyze user conversations for marketing and other purposes, which is in direct violation of California law.

On December 31, 2024, Fumiko Lopez, Fumiko Lopez as guardian of A.L., a minor, John Troy Pappas and David Yakubian filed an unopposed motion (PDF), in which Apple agreed to pay the plaintiffs, as well as others similarly situated $95 million in damages to resolve complaints over privacy violations by the company’s Siri technology.

The proposed settlement would provide compensation for potential claims by tens of millions of Apple customers who owned Siri-enabled devices between September 17, 2014, and December 31, 2024. Apple introduced its wake phrase, “Hey, Siri,” on September 17, 2014. A wake phrase is a designated phrase that activates an autonomous device or system, allowing it to respond to voice commands.

According to the plaintiffs, Siri technology not only recorded information when the phrase “Hey, Siri,” was said by the user, but also at many other times when the user did not want to have their conversations recorded.

One individual even claims that they received an ad for medication served to their iPhone based on a private conversation they had with their doctor, which Siri allegedly recorded.

“Apple and these Siri Devices unlawfully recorded Plaintiffs Lopez and A.L. without their consent on multiple occasions, including when they failed to utter a wake phrase,” Lopez said in the original complaint. “At no point did Plaintiffs consent to these unlawful recordings.”

In agreeing to settle, Apple has denied any wrongdoing, and the $95 million award is a drop in the bucket for the company, which recorded $93.74 billion in net income during its last fiscal year.

Google faces a similar lawsuit regarding its own Voice Assistant technology, which has been filed in the same federal court as the Siri lawsuit filed by Lopez and others.