Apple class action lawsuit overview:
- Who: An Illinois state judge certified a class action lawsuit against Apple Inc. over its Siri feature.
- Why: The plaintiffs allege Apple violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by failing to obtain informed consent before collecting, storing and using voiceprints from its Siri users.
- Where: The Apple class action lawsuit was filed in Illinois state court.
A class action lawsuit alleging Apple violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act by failing to obtain informed consent before storing and using voiceprints from its Siri users will proceed as a class action, a state judge has ruled.
In a Jan. 29 ruling, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Michael Mullen certified a class of Illinois residents who used Siri on an Apple device and had their voiceprints or identifiable biometric feature vectors collected and stored since Sept. 14, 2014.
The ruling means the Apple class action lawsuit will proceed on behalf of about 3 million Apple users, according to plaintiffs’ attorney David Golub.
Judge Mullen determined that resolving the plaintiffs’ BIPA claims on a classwide basis is the most efficient and fair way to proceed and is consistent with the policy goals underlying class action litigation.
The judge said class certification will allow the court to address several common questions, including whether the voice feature vectors Apple uses to identify Siri users qualify as “voiceprints” subject to BIPA’s informed-consent requirements.
Apple Siri class action lawsuit says users not asked for consent
The plaintiffs in the Apple class action lawsuit allege the company failed to request informed consent to collect, use, store and disseminate the voiceprints generated when users enable Siri on their Apple devices.
According to the Apple Siri class action lawsuit, users are prompted to repeat five phrases that are recorded and analyzed as part of the Siri enrollment process, and the first 40 Siri requests are recorded and analyzed to create a “user profile” associated with the speaker.
Apple argued class certification was not appropriate because users could activate the optional Siri function in different ways and different speech-recognition functions were in effect throughout the class period.
However, Judge Mullen said the individual issues did not overcome the dominating legal and factual issues in the case.
Apple also urged the court to limit the class to users who used Siri on their iPhones, but Judge Mullen refused, noting that testimony from an Apple executive indicated Siri functions the same across all Apple devices.
In another Apple class action, two authors are suing Apple over allegations it used pirated books to train its Apple Intelligence artificial intelligence models.
What do you think about the Apple Siri class action lawsuit? Join the discussion in the comments!
The plaintiffs are represented by David Golub and Jennifer Sclar of Silver Golub & Teitell LLP, Kevin Forde and Brian O’Meara of Forde & O’Meara LLP and Zachary Freeman and Rachel Simon of Miller Shakman Levine & Feldman.
The Apple Siri class action lawsuit is Zaluda, et al. v. Apple Inc., Case No. 2019-CH-11771, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.
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