Apple to pay $95 million to settle Siri wiretapping case

Apple has agreed to pay $95m (£77m) to settle a lawsuit alleging that some of its devices eavesdropped on people without their permission.

The tech giant has been accused of eavesdropping on customers through the virtual assistant Siri.

The plaintiffs also allege that the voice recordings were shared with advertisers.

Apple, which has not admitted any wrongdoing, has been reached for comment.

In the village preliminary calculation the tech firm denies any wrongdoing and claims it “recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete conversations recorded as a result of Siri activation” without consent.

Apple lawyers also say they will confirm that they “permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected by Apple prior to October 2019.”

But the plaintiffs say the tech firm has recorded people activating the virtual assistant unintentionally — without using the phrase “Hey Siri” to wake it up.

And they say advertisers who received the records could then search them for keywords to better target ads.

Apple has proposed to accept the decision of the court in Oakland, California on February 14.

Class action lawsuits work by a small number of people suing on behalf of a larger group.

If successful, the winnings are paid to all applicants.

Each applicant, who must be located in the US, could be paid up to $20 for each Siri-enabled device they owned between 2014 and 2019, according to court documents.

In this case, the lawyers could take a 30% fee plus costs – which is just under $30 million.

By settling, Apple not only denies wrongdoing, but also avoids the risk of facing a lawsuit that could potentially mean a much larger payout.

California company earned 94.9 billion dollars for three months until September 28, 2024.

In recent years, Apple has been involved in a number of class action lawsuits,

In January 2024, payment began in a $500 million lawsuit which claimed it was deliberately slowing down iPhones in the US.

They agreed to it in March will pay $490 million in a class action led by Norfolk County Council in the UK.

And in November, the consumer group Which? launched a class-action lawsuit against Apple, accusing it of stealing customers through it iCloud service.