2019Event location unknownSiri
On 26 July 2019 the Guardian reported that contractors grading a small share of Siri recordings for Apple regularly heard confidential information. Its anonymous source, a contractor, said Siri was often activated by mistake, for example by the sound of a zip, and that these accidental activations captured private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, apparently criminal dealings and sexual encounters, with location, contact details and app data attached. Apple told the Guardian that requests were not linked to users' Apple IDs and that less than 1% of daily activations were graded. On 28 August 2019 Apple apologised, said it had suspended human grading, and said audio would no longer be retained by default, grading would become opt-in and recordings found to be inadvertent triggers would be deleted. Device owners' class action, Lopez v. Apple in the federal court in Oakland, alleged that Apple recorded private conversations after unintended Siri activations and disclosed them to third parties. Apple agreed to pay $95 million while denying wrongdoing, and co-class counsel say the judge granted final approval on 16 October 2025.
Contextual tracker case Medium reported severity Lawsuit Settled
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 4 sources · Added 29/10/2026
Dec 2025 to Aug 2026United StatesPega Voice AI (reported)
Four U.S. Bank account holders in California, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania allege in a federal class action filed on 2 October 2026 that Pegasystems' Pega Voice AI, which they say U.S. Bank uses in its contact centres, transcribed their customer-service calls in real time, analysed them with natural language processing and generated suggestions to the agent, without their prior consent. They say they gave account numbers, a date of birth and a home address on the calls, made between about December 2025 and August 2026. The claims are allegations; The CourtListener index of the docket, checked on 21 October 2026, listed the summons as returned executed on 16 October and no response from Pegasystems.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 21/10/2026
1 Mar 2025 to 18 Nov 2025United StatesFireflies.AI meeting assistant (reported)
Four Illinois residents who say they never had Fireflies accounts allege in four federal lawsuits, two of them later consolidated, that the Fireflies.AI meeting assistant, enabled by a colleague, boss or meeting organiser, recorded their voices in Zoom or Microsoft Teams meetings between March and November 2025, analysed their vocal characteristics to tell speakers apart and generated transcripts attributing statements to them, capturing voiceprints without telling them or obtaining written consent, in breach of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. One plaintiff dismissed her case without prejudice in March 2026; the California court stayed its case at both parties’ joint request in April 2026; Fireflies has moved to dismiss the consolidated Illinois case and does not concede that it collected biometric data about the plaintiffs.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources · Added 20/10/2026
Mar 2024 to May 2025United StatesOtter Notetaker
Seven people in California, Illinois and Washington state are suing Otter.ai in a consolidated class action in the Northern District of California. Each says another meeting participant used Otter's AI Notetaker on a Zoom or Microsoft Teams call they joined, and that Otter recorded, transcribed and stored their conversation without their consent; six of them date their calls between March 2024 and May 2025. They say they were not Otter account holders. The calls they describe include a medical consultation, meetings with a financial professional and work discussions. They allege that Otter keeps the recordings and uses them to train its speech-recognition models, that it captured voiceprints of the Illinois plaintiffs, and one of them says learning of the recording left him frustrated, embarrassed and stressed. On 13 August 2026 the court found that the alleged interception of private conversations was a concrete injury and let the federal wiretap, California eavesdropping and Illinois biometric claims proceed, while dismissing some claims. Otter's answer to the consolidated complaint, filed on 17 September 2026, says it lacks knowledge of the plaintiffs' experiences and denies the allegations.
Contextual tracker case Low reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026