Apple has agreed to pay $95 million (£77 million) to settle a lawsuit over allegations that some of its devices listened in on people without their consent.
The tech giant was accused of recording conversations of its customers through the virtual assistant Siri.
Plaintiffs also claimed that the audio recordings of these conversations were passed on to advertisers.
Apple, which denies any wrongdoing, declined to comment on the situation at the time of publication.
As part of the preliminary agreement, the tech company denies any violations and states that it recorded, disclosed to third parties, or did not delete conversations that were recorded during the activation of Siri without users’ consent.
Apple's lawyers also added that the company "permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected before October 2019."
However, plaintiffs argue that Apple recorded conversations of people who inadvertently activated the virtual assistant without using the standard phrase “Hey, Siri” to trigger it.
The plaintiffs believe that advertisers who received these recordings could have searched for keywords in the recordings to better target advertisements.
The lead plaintiff, Fumiko Lopez, claims that she and her daughter were recorded without their consent. They say that after discussing products, particularly Air Jordans shoes, they started seeing targeted ads related to it.
Class Action Lawsuit Apple has asked the court in Northern California to make a decision by February 14.
Class action lawsuits involve a small group of people suing on behalf of a broader audience. If successful, all class members share a portion of the winnings.
According to court documents, any U.S. plaintiff with a device supporting Siri between 2014 and 2019 could receive up to $20.
Attorneys handling the lawsuit may receive up to 30% of the fees plus expenses, which could total nearly $30 million.
With this settlement, Apple not only denies any wrongdoing but also avoids potentially much larger financial losses from a protracted legal battle.
In its financial report for the three months ending September 28, 2024, the company reported $94.9 billion in revenue.
Apple has previously been involved in several other class action lawsuits. In January 2024, the company began paying $500 million in response to a suit that accused it of deliberately slowing down iPhones in the U.S.
In March 2024, it agreed to pay $490 million in relation to a lawsuit led by the Norfolk County Council in the UK.
In November that same year, a consumer group, Which?, filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, accusing it of fraud through its iCloud service.
The same law firm also filed a class action lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of listening in on users of its devices. This suit is also currently under consideration in the same court in Northern California.