Apple has agreed to pay £77m ($95m) to settle a court case aIleging some of its devices were listening to people without their permission. The tech giant was accused of eavesdropping on its customers through its virtual assistant Siri, as the claimants also allege voice recordings were shared with advertisers.

Apple’s lawyers say they will confirm they have permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected by Apple prior to October 2019. The tech firm denies any wrongdoing, as well as claims that it “recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete conversations recorded as the result of a “Siri activation” without consent.

But the claimants say they will confirm the tech firm recorded people who activated the virtual assistant unintentionally – without using the phrase “Hey Siri” to wake it.

They also say advertisers who received the recordings could then look for keywords in them to better target ads. The lead plaintiff Fumiko Lopez claims she and her daughter were both recorded without their consent.

They allege they were served targeted ads after talking about products including Air Jordans.

Apple has proposed a decision date of 14 February in the court in Northern California. Class action lawsuits work by a small group of people going to court on behalf of a larger group. If they are successful, the money won is paid out across all claimants.

has not admitted to any wrongdoing, 

According to court documents, each claimant- who has to be based in the US -could be paid up to $20 per Siri-enabled device they owned between 2014 and 2019.

Lawyers could take 30 per cent of the fee plus expenses – which adds up to $30m.

Apple made $94,9bn in revenue, in the three months up to 29 September 2024.

In January 2024, Apple started paying out in a $500m lawsuit which claimed it deliberately slowed down iPhones in the US. 

In March it agreed to pay $490m in a class action by Norfolk County Council in the UK.

In November, consumer group Which? started a class action against Apple, accusing it of ripping off customers through its iCloud service.

Google is also sued in a similar class action, accusing it of listening to customers using Google devices.