Last year, Apple agreed to pay compensation to settle a class-action lawsuit regarding the "illegal and intentional" recording of personal conversations by the Siri voice assistant for the purpose of passing this information to advertisers.
The issue dates back to 2019, and since then the company has improved Siri's privacy, but it still agreed to make payments to settle the dispute. Applications were accepted in the middle of last year, and this week iPhone users began receiving payments.
People who purchased an Apple device with Siri between September 17, 2014, and December 31, 2024, and experienced "unintentional activation of Siri" were eligible to apply for compensation. Each such user could claim up to five devices.
Although Apple allocated $95 million to settle the lawsuit, expecting to pay $20 per device, or no more than $100 per user, the final amounts turned out to be $8.02 per device with a maximum payout of $40.10.
Direct payments from Apple as part of the settlement began reaching users at the end of this week. It is likely that soon all users who managed to register during the designated period will receive their payments.
Typically, voice assistants are activated with specific commands, such as "Hey, Siri." However, in this case, the voice assistant activated spontaneously. As a result, even brands mentioned accidentally in conversations later appeared in targeted advertising.
Judging by the size of the payouts, tens of millions of Apple device owners affected by the issue managed to apply for them.
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