A judge ruled that Apple will have to continue fighting a lawsuit brought by Siri users in federal court in California, alleging that the company's voice assistant Siri has improperly recorded private conversations.
Judge Jeffrey S. White of federal district court in Oakland said that most of the lawsuit could move forward, despite Apple's request to have it thrown out. He ruled that the plaintiffs, who are trying to make the suit a class action case, could continue pursuing claims that Siri turned on unprompted and recorded conversations that it shouldn't have and passed the data along to third parties, therefore violating user privacy.
The case is one of several that have been brought against Apple, Google and Amazon that involve allegations of violation of privacy by voice assistants. The technologies -- Siri, Alexa and, predictably, Google -- connect to speakers and can play music, or set a timer or add an item to a shopping list. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
The companies deny that they are listening to conversations for any purpose other than the intended ones.
A Washington Post investigation in 2019 found that Amazon kept a copy of everything Alexa records after it thinks it hears its name -- even if users didn't realize.