Early last year, Apple agreed to settle a class action lawsuit regarding ‘unlawful and intentional recording’ of conversations with Siri. The issue dates back to 2019, and the company denies any wrongdoing. Since then, Apple has taken efforts to improve Siri privacy, but it still settled this case to go forward.
Claims started being accepted mid last year, and now users are starting to receive their payouts.
To qualify for the settlement, you must’ve purchased a Siri-enabled Apple device between September 17, 2014 and December 31, 2024 and experienced an ‘unintended Siri activation.’
You were able to submit up to 5 devices as an individual. While the $95 million settlement was estimated to pay up to $20 per device with a max payout of $100, the final numbers seems to be around $8.02 per device – with a max payout of $40.10.
Either way, if you were able to participate in this settlement, direct deposits for the payouts began to hit yesterday. If you instead opted for a prepaid gift card or a check, keep an eye out on your email spam folder or mailbox!
Background
This lawsuit goes back to when The Guardian reported that Apple contractors were overhearing private conversations while grading Siri. Apple says less than 1% of Siri interactions were being shared for quality assurance, but nonetheless, it was highly concerning.
Since, the company has required users to opt-in to these recordings for ‘grading’ Siri interactions, and they no longer contract these services out.
Outside of that though, the true privacy concern was the fact that Siri would sometimes get triggered accidentally, resulting in the voice assistant being active when you weren’t actively trying to have a conversation with it, which resulted in contractors hearing things that they shouldn’t have.
Apple denies any wrongdoing, and says that Siri conversations are never used for marketing. Recordings were also never associated with any users Apple account.
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