Apple Files to Settle Siri Privacy Lawsuit ⇥ reuters.com

Jonathan Stempel, Reuters:

Apple agreed to pay $95 million in cash to settle a proposed class action lawsuit claiming that its voice-activated Siri assistant violated users’ privacy.

A preliminary settlement was filed on Tuesday night in the Oakland, California federal court, and requires approval by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White.

Alex Hern, who wrote the 2019 Guardian story forming the basis of many complaints in the lawsuit, today on Bluesky:

There’s two claims in one case and one of them Apple is bang to rights on (“Siri records accidental interactions”) and the other is worth far far more than $95m to disprove (“those recordings are shared with advertisers”)

The original complaint (PDF), filed just a couple of weeks after Hern’s story broke, does not once mention advertising. A revised complaint (PDF), filed a few months later, mentions it once and only in passing (emphasis mine):

Apple’s actions were at all relevant times knowing, willful, and intentional as evidenced by Apple’s admission that a significant portion of the recordings it shares with its contractors are made without use of a hot word and its use of the information to, among other things, improve the functionality of Siri for Apple’s own financial benefit, to target personalized advertising to users, and to generate significant profits. Apple’s actions were done in reckless disregard for Plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ privacy rights.

This is the sole mention in the entire complaint, and there is no citation or evidence for it. However, a further revision (PDF), filed in 2021, contains plenty of anecdotes:

Several times, obscure topics of Plaintiff Lopez’s and Plaintiff A.L.’s private conversations were used by Apple and its partners to target advertisements to them. For example, during different private conversations, Plaintiff Lopez and Plaintiff A.L. mentioned brand names including “Olive Garden,” “Easton bats,” “Pit Viper sunglasses,” and “Air Jordans.” These advertisements were targeted to Plaintiffs Lopez and A.L. Subsequent to these private conversations, Plaintiff Lopez and Plaintiff A.L., these products began to populate Apple search results and Plaintiffs also received targeted advertisements for these products in Apple’s Safari browser and in third party applications. Plaintiffs Lopez and A.L. had not previously searched for these items prior to the targeted advertisements. Because the intercepted conversations took place in private to the exclusion of others, only through Apple’s surreptitious recording could these specific advertisements be pinpointed to Plaintiffs Lopez and A.L.

I am filing this in the needs supporting evidence column alongside other claims of microphones being used to target advertising. I sympathize with the plaintiffs in this case, but nothing about their anecdotes — more detail on pages 8 and 10 of the complaint — is compelling, as alternative explanations are possible.

For example, one plaintiff discussed a particular type of surgery with his doctor, and then saw ads on his iPhone related to the condition it treats. While it seems possible Siri was erroneously activated, Apple received a copy of the recording, and then it automatically transcribed and sold its contents to data brokers, this is massively speculative compared to what we know ad tech companies do. Perhaps the doctor’s office was part of a geofenced ad campaign. Or, perhaps the doctor was searching related keywords and then, because the plaintiff’s phone was in the proximity of the doctor’s devices, some cross-device targeting became confused. Neither of these explanations involve microphones, let alone Siri.

Yet, because Apple settled this lawsuit, it looks like it is not interested in fighting these claims. It creates another piece of pseudo-evidence for people who believe microphone-equipped devices are transforming idle conversations into perfectly targeted ads.

None of these stories have so far been proven, and there is not a shred of direct evidence it is occurring — but I can understand why people are paranoid. While businesses have exploited private data to sell ads for decades, we have dramatically increased the amount of devices we have and the time we spend with them with few meaningful steps taken toward user privacy. We are feeding every part of this nauseating industry more data with, in many countries, about the same regulatory oversight.

I could be entirely wrong. Apple could have settled this case because it is, indeed, doing more-or-less what the plaintiffs say. To that possibility, I say: show me real evidence. I have no problem admitting I got something wrong.