Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the tech giant used its voice assistant Siri to capture and share users' private conversations without their permission.
Provisional paymentThe lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in California, caps a more than five-year legal battle over claims that Apple's Siri assistant regularly recorded private conversations and shared them with third parties, including advertisers. put an end to it.
Privacy and eavesdropping lawsuits allege that Siri recorded conversations even if the user did not enable the feature by pressing a designated button or saying the cue phrase “Hey, Siri” to an iPhone or other Apple device I'm doing it.
The settlement still awaits approval by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, and lawyers have proposed a hearing on February 14 to review the terms.
If approved, the settlement would allow tens of millions of individuals who owned an iPhone or other Apple device between September 17, 2014, and the end of last year to file a claim. According to court documents. Consumers can apply for coverage for up to five Siri devices.
Each customer can receive up to $20 per Siri-enabled device, but only 3 to 5 percent of eligible consumers are expected to file a claim. The Associated Press pointed out that.
Apple did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement. The Hill has reached out to the company and its attorneys for further comment.
$95 million is just a small portion of the profits brought in by Apple. There was reportedly a net profit. That's far less than the estimated $1.5 billion that lawyers representing consumers estimated the tech giants could pay if the privacy case went to trial, according to the Associated Press.
