Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to put an end to lawsuits brought by US consumers who accuse it of recording their private conversations via its Siri voice assistant - present on iPhones among other devices - without their knowledge.
Apple has always denied, and continues to deny, any alleged wrongdoing or liability, according to the agreement signed on Tuesday, which still has to be approved by the courts.
The Californian technology giant, which has built its brand image on the performance of its devices and respect for users' privacy, is thus emerging from a five-year legal battle.
According to the class action suit filed in 2019, Siri could be activated accidentally and record private conversations.
The plaintiffs accuse Apple of violating users' privacy by transmitting these recordings to third parties.
The settlement requires the company to confirm that it has indeed deleted the recordings and to explain to users their choices in terms of storing data collected by Siri, if they choose to help Apple improve the voice assistant.
The sum, which will be distributed among a potentially large number of eligible consumers residing in the United States, should not weigh on the accounts of Apple, one of the world's largest market capitalisations.
In 2023, Amazon agreed to pay more than $30 million to the US consumer protection agency, FTC, to put an end to lawsuits against its Ring connected doorbells and cameras, and Alexa voice assistant.
The FTC accused Amazon of giving hundreds of employees and contractors access to customer videos, and of storing personal data (on users' voices, geographical location, etc.) that it had promised to delete.
