Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the privacy-conscious company of using its virtual assistant Siri to listen in on people using its iPhone and other trendy devices.
The proposed settlement, filed Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, would resolve a five-year-old lawsuit involving allegations that Apple secretly enabled Siri to record conversations on iPhones and other devices which have been equipped with the virtual assistant for greater than a decade.
The alleged recordings occurred even when people didn't attempt to activate the virtual assistant with the trigger words “Hey, Siri.” Some of the recorded conversations were then shared with advertisers to sell their products to consumers who were more more likely to be keen on the products and services, the lawsuit says.
The claims of a snooping Siri contradicted Apple's longstanding commitment protect privacy of its customers — a crusade that CEO Tim Cook has often portrayed as a fight to preserve “a basic human right.”
Apple doesn’t admit any wrongdoing within the settlement, which still must be approved by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White. Attorneys working within the case have suggested scheduling a Feb. 14 court hearing in Oakland to review the conditions.
If the settlement is approved, tens of tens of millions of consumers who owned iPhones and other Apple devices from Sept. 17, 2014 through the top of last yr could file claims. Each consumer could receive as much as $20 for every Siri-equipped device covered by the agreement, although the payment could possibly be reduced or increased depending on the scope of the claim. Estimates from court documents indicate that only 3% to five% of eligible consumers are expected to file claims.
Eligible consumers may only request compensation for a maximum of 5 devices.
The settlement represents a fraction of the $705 billion in profits Apple has made since September 2014. It's also a fraction of the roughly $1.5 billion that consumer lawyers had estimated Apple would must pay if it was found to have committed wiretapping violations and other privacy laws had taken the case to court.
According to court documents, the attorneys who filed the lawsuit can seek as much as $29.6 million from the settlement fund to cover their fees and other costs.
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