United States: seven people who say they had no Otter account allege its AI Notetaker recorded calls without consent; a judge let core privacy claims proceed

The consolidated complaint (5 December 2025) describes each plaintiff's experience. A California plaintiff says he joined a Zoom meeting in California on 24 February 2025 where another participant used Otter Notetaker to transcribe the conversation; he was not an Otter account holder, was not told that Otter itself would obtain and keep his conversation or use it to train its speech-recognition and machine-learning tools, and says he felt frustrated, embarrassed and stressed to learn of it. A second California plaintiff says Otter Notetaker transcribed a Zoom call in March 2025 in which the plaintiff communicated with a medical professional about private medical information. A third says Otter appeared as a co-worker's notetaker on a Microsoft Teams meeting around January 2025 about sensitive work matters. Two Illinois plaintiffs say Otter Notetaker transcribed Zoom meetings on 10 January and 19 May 2025 in which they communicated with a financial professional, and that Otter captured their voiceprints; a third Illinois plaintiff describes work meetings on Zoom within the limitations period, without dates. A Washington plaintiff says Otter recorded a Zoom call about professional opportunities in March 2024. Each says the data remain on Otter's servers. The complaint alleges that an Otter Notetaker can join a meeting without the affirmative consent of any participant when the host has linked a calendar, and that Otter does not ask other participants for consent; NPR reported that Otter's privacy policy says it trains on meeting transcripts with users' permission and that it de-identifies audio first. In its 13 August 2026 order the court held that the alleged unauthorized interception, recording, transcription and retention of private conversations resembled the common-law tort of intrusion upon seclusion and was a concrete injury, and that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged Otter acted as a third-party eavesdropper; it found that two plaintiffs had not plausibly alleged a reasonable expectation of privacy for one California claim, while the medical-call plaintiff had. Otter's answer states it lacks knowledge or information about each plaintiff's personal experiences and on that basis denies them. None of the allegations has been proven.

The plaintiffs allege that Otter recorded, transcribed and kept their private conversations on calls they joined without their consent, including medical and financial discussions, used them to train its models and took voiceprints, and one plaintiff says learning this left him frustrated, embarrassed and stressed (plaintiffs' allegations in a pending suit; Otter denies them).

Brewer v. Otter.ai was filed on 15 August 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and consolidated with related suits as In re Otter.AI Privacy Litigation, No. 5:25-cv-06911-EKL; a consolidated class action complaint was filed on 5 December 2025. On 13 August 2026 Judge Eumi K. Lee granted Otter's motion to dismiss in part: standing and the federal wiretap (ECPA), California Invasion of Privacy Act section 631, Illinois BIPA, unjust enrichment, UCL and declaratory claims survived; some claims were dismissed with leave to amend and withdrawn claims were dismissed. Otter answered the amended complaint on 17 September 2026. An amended scheduling order of 16 September 2026 sets the last day to move for class certification as 13 May 2027.