Apple is going to have to open up its wallet over violations of user data handling.
Reuters cites court documents in reporting that the Cupertino, California-based tech giant will be paying out a $95 million settlement over claims it exposed user data.
The case, based in the U.S. Northern California District Court in Oakland, centers around allegations that Apple illegally collected and stored data from user mobile devices without permission.
The settlement is in its early stages, and the deal has yet to be approved by Judge Jeffry White of the Oakland-based District Court.
According to the plaintiffs, Apple violated U.S. law when it used its Siri personal assistant to harvest data from user voice queries. Reuters said that Apple was accused of not only harvesting conversations from its customers, but also offering that illegally collected data to third party advertisers.
The plaintiffs cite cases where users asked Siri for information on Air Jordan sneakers and Olive Garden restaurants only to be later served advertisements for each business with timing that was too precise to be mere coincidence.
The case could provide a precedent for further lawsuits against vendors who sell personal assistant devices. Tech companies such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon all provide hardware and software that functions in the same way as Apple’s Siri, and carry similar privacy and data security concerns.
Aside from violating user privacy by collecting the data, sharing queries with advertisers poses a security concern as Apple (and other vendors) would have no way of verifying that the data was being properly encrypted and protected from outside threat actors.
Apple paying out a settlement will likely spur other attorneys and users to press their own class action claims over data collection and sharing with advertisers.
While the $95 million payout is not exactly pocket change, it will not make for a sizable dent in Apple’s cash reserves. Apple netted a profit of $27 billion based off $95 billion of net income.
