Apple (AAPL.US) has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a Siri privacy lawsuit.

Apple (AAPL.US) has agreed to pay $95 million in cash to settle a class action lawsuit that alleged its voice assistant Siri violated users' privacy. Apple filed a preliminary settlement agreement Tuesday evening in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland. Device users complained that Apple frequently recorded private conversations without their knowledge after inadvertently activating Siri, and then shared the recordings with third parties such as advertisers. Siri typically responds when users say a "hotword" such as "Hey Siri." The lawsuit covered the period from Sept. 17, 2014, to Dec. 31, 2024, and began when Siri added the "Hey Siri" feature, which allegedly led to unauthorized recordings. The class action is expected to involve millions of people, and the plaintiffs could receive up to $20 per supported Siri-enabled device, such as an iPhone or Apple Watch. Apple denied wrongdoing when it agreed to settle. The $95 million payout is equivalent to about nine hours of Apple's profit in the last fiscal year, when the company reported a net profit of $93.74 billion.