- Apple is paying out $95 million to settle a Siri class-action lawsuit
- If you think you’re eligible, you need to submit a claim by July 2
- Apple has denied all wrongdoing in settling the case
Back in January, Apple agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit related to its Siri voice assistant. The case saw some Apple device owners claim that Siri had disclosed their private conversations to advertisers, following “unintended Siri activations”.
Apple denied all wrongdoing and agreed to settle the case to “avoid additional litigation” (more on that below). But the result of the ‘Lopez vs Apple Inc’ suit means that, if you owned and used an Apple device between September 17, 2014 and December 31, 2024, you could be due a small slice of the payout.
Those who are eligible could be a line for a maximum payout of $100 (that’s $20 per device, for up to five Siri devices). Not exactly a lottery jackpot, but worth investigating if you think you’ve been affected by unintentionally activating Siri during a private conversation during that period.
As The Verge reports, many of those affected will have received an email titled “Lopez Voice Assistant Class Action Settlement” (from the address ‘[email protected]’). Despite sounding like spam, this is a genuine email containing details like your ‘claimant identification code’ and more.
But even if you didn’t receive this, you can also submit a claim. Here’s a quick breakdown of what happened, how Apple’s responded and how to file a claim if you think you’ve been affected…
What happened?
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs alleged that “confidential or private communications” were “obtained by Apple and/or shared with third parties as a result of an unintended Siri activation”. According to the suit’s homepage, that took place sometime between 17 September, 2014 and 31 December, 2024.
But how? Apple has always maintained that iPhones don’t ‘listen’ to their owners, aside from when wake words like ‘Hey, Siri’ are used. Well, the key is that phrase “unintended Siri activation”.
The plaintiffs say that Siri not only tuned into private conversations by mistake – perhaps by mishearing a wake word – but also used that information to subsequently trigger ads.
Again, Apple denies that this is possible, stating that “Siri data has never been used to build marketing profiles and it has never been sold to anyone for any purpose”.
Nevertheless, as Reuters reported, two plaintiffs claimed that their mentions on Air Jordan sneakers and Olive Garden restaurants later resulted in them getting ads for those products, while another plaintiff claimed they got ads for a brand name surgical treatment after talking about it with their doctor.
What did Apple say?
Despite agreeing to pay $95 million to settle the Siri lawsuit, Apple was pretty bullish in its response – and admitted no wrongdoing, despite settling the suit.
Apple told us that “Siri data has never been used to build marketing profiles and it has never been sold to anyone for any purpose,” adding that collected data is only used to improve the virtual assistant.
In a separate statement, it added: “Apple settled this case to avoid additional litigation so we can move forward from concerns about third-party grading that we already addressed in 2019. We use Siri data to improve Siri, and we are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private.”
That’s fairly emphatic then, but the settlement means that potentially millions of Apple device owners could be eligible for a claim – here’s how to check to see if you’re one of them.
How to claim
If you think you’re eligible for a payout in the ‘Lopez v Apple Inc’ lawsuit, you’ll need to use the official claim form and submit it by July 2, 2025.
You’ll need to meet some pretty specific criteria in order to be eligible for a payout. That criteria is below and the claim form asks you to confirm all of the below under oath:
- between September 17, 2014 and December 31, 2024 you bought or owned a Siri device in the United States, and enabled Siri on that device
- you experienced an “unintended Siri activation” in that period
- that unintended Siri activation took place “during a conversation intended to be confidential and private”
You can make claims for up to five Siri devices – these can include iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, MacBooks, iMacs, HomePods, the iPod touch, or Apple TVs.
As mentioned above, many of those who are potentially eligible will have received an email titled “Lopez Voice Assistant Class Action Settlement”. But you don’t necessarily need to have received that email to make a claim – if not, just click “New Claim” in the claim form and enter your details from there.
Read the full article here
