Apple Settles Siri Spying Lawsuit
Apple has agreed to a $95 million settlement with users whose conversations were inadvertently captured by its Siri voice assistant and potentially overheard by human employees. The proposed settlement, reported by Bloomberg, could pay many US-based Apple product owners up to $20 per device for up to five Siri-enabled devices. It still requires approval by a judge.
If approved, the settlement would apply to a subset of US-based people who owned or bought a Siri-enabled iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBook, iMac, HomePod, iPod touch, or Apple TV between September 17th, 2014 and December 31st, 2024. A user would also need to meet one other major criteria: they must swear under oath that they accidentally activated Siri during a conversation intended to be confidential or private.
The lawsuit alleges that Apple recorded conversations captured with accidental Siri activations, and then shared information from those conversations with third-party advertisers.
Two plaintiffs claimed that after speaking about products like Air Jordan shoes and Olive Garden, their devices showed ads for those products, while another said he received ads for a surgical treatment after discussing it privately with his doctor.
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While the lawsuit initially focused on Apple’s lack of disclosure, the first filing was dismissed in February 2021 because it did not include enough concrete data about the recordings that Apple allegedly collected. An amended complaint that focused on Siri recordings used for “targeted advertising” was refiled in September 2021, and that was allowed to move forward.
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Apple says that it “continues to deny any and all alleged wrongdoing and liability, specifically denies each of the Plaintiffs’ contentions and claims, and continues to deny that the Plaintiffs’ claims and allegations would be suitable for class action status.” Apple is settling to avoid further costs of litigation.
I had thought this controversy was about contractors hearing the audio. The advertising angle is new to me. If Apple actually did that, it would be one of the biggest Apple news stories ever. I think it’s much more likely that a third-party app was listening to the microphone or that the ads were not based on audio at all. That said, given that privacy is so important to Apple’s brand, and that it seems so unlikely that Apple’s actually guilty of this, it’s a bit of a mystery why it would want to settle. I would think that proving its innocence would be well worth the legal fees, unless it fears the exposure of other information that would become public in discovery.
Ashley Belanger (Hacker News):
While the settlement appears to be a victory for Apple users after months of mediation, it potentially lets Apple off the hook pretty cheaply. If the court had certified the class action and Apple users had won, Apple could’ve been fined more than $1.5 billion under the Wiretap Act alone, court filings showed.
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It was also possible that the class size could be significantly narrowed through ongoing litigation, if the court determined that Apple users had to prove their calls had been recorded through an incidental Siri activation—potentially reducing recoverable damages for everyone.
Or, maybe they fear a combination of the class being enlarged—almost every iOS user probably had some accidental activations—and a court deciding that the users don’t have to prove anything. Then the damages could really multiply.
Apple probably figures correctly that the advertising allegation will be quickly forgotten. But it’s not a very satisfying resolution. We don’t get to learn the details of what went on, and the compensation is ridiculously low for the people who were actually harmed.
Previously:
- Keeping Your Data From Apple Is Harder Than Expected
- Siri Suggestions and Privacy
- iOS 15: On-Device Siri
- “Lack of Action” on Siri Recordings
- Opting Out of Sharing Siri Audio Recordings
- Facebook and Microsoft Contractors Listen to Recordings, Too
- Apple Contractors “Regularly Hear Confidential Details” on Siri Recordings
- Amazon Employees Review “Small Sample” of Alexa Audio
Update (2025-01-07): See also: Slashdot.
After being questioned about privacy in a letter from Congress, Cook stated unequivocally that Apple doesn’t collect audio recordings of users without consent.
“Far from requiring a ‘clear, unambiguous trigger’ as Apple claimed in its response to Congress, Siri can be activated by nearly anything, including ‘[t]he sound of a zip’ or an individual raising their arms and speaking,” the complaint reads. “Once activated, Siri records everything within range of the Siri Devices’ microphone and sends it to Apple’s servers.”
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Google is also facing a similar lawsuit after Belgian journalists reportedly found that the Chocolate Factory’s Assistant was also listening in without authorization. That case is still unresolved, and a German investigation into the matter is also ongoing.
IMHO people should stop giving a pass to Apple and just assume the worst, like for Meta and Google.
Years after years we are told the koolaid that Apple “cares” about privacy. And every year there is a controversy like this, privacy issues, “bugs”.
The original complaint (PDF), filed just a couple of weeks after Hern’s story broke, does not once mention advertising. A revised complaint (PDF), filed a few months later, mentions it once and only in passing (emphasis mine)[…] This is the sole mention in the entire complaint, and there is no citation or evidence for it. However, a further revision (PDF), filed in 2021, contains plenty of anecdotes[…]
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I am filing this in the needs supporting evidence column alongside other claims of microphones being used to target advertising. I sympathize with the plaintiffs in this case, but nothing about their anecdotes — more detail on pages 8 and 10 of the complaint — is compelling, as alternative explanations are possible.
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Yet, because Apple settled this lawsuit, it looks like it is not interested in fighting these claims. It creates another piece of pseudo-evidence for people who believe microphone-equipped devices are transforming idle conversations into perfectly targeted ads.
None of these stories have so far been proven, and there is not a shred of direct evidence it is occurring — but I can understand why people are paranoid.
Apple doesn’t serve well-targeted ads based on text you type, describing exactly what you’re looking for, in the search box in the App Store, but a million gullible idiots believe they’re serving uncannily accurate ads based on snippets of random conversations secretly recorded from across the room.
No Siri data has ever been used for marketing purposes or sold to a third-party company for any reason, Apple said today in response to accusations that conversations Siri has captured were used for advertising.
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Great so now the tinfoil hat brigade will have something to validate their inane ramblings. I mean what else could explain someone seeing an advert for Nike trainers after talking about them - it's not like Nike spend money on advertising generally - oh wait.
Related: https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.
Meet Niall, who has an active digital life though little concerns about security or privacy within it. Niall has never been ripped off, duped, or 'sold a pup', Niall is too smart and knows best. Niall also considers those that discuss it, at all, as the 'tinfoil brigade'. Niall will not take a deeper interest in the topic but continue defending marketing claims verbatim. Full disclosure, I've never met Niall, so it's likely some or all of the above is incorrect.
"swear under oath that they accidentally activated Siri during a conversation intended to be confidential or private"
The number of times people would have noticed this would have been the tip of the iceberg with respect to the number of times it would have happened. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Moreover this is a tiny amount of money for Apple, unlikely to change any behavior. It would be better to send their executives to prison. Having to suffer what the poorest of us must for far less criminal behavior might concentrate some overly coddled and wealthy minds.
The real conspiracy here is that Apple put the ridiculed "eves dropping ads" spin on this to once again get away with invading their customers privacy.
Just like they spun the Fappening into "their fault for having weak passwords"
