Apple users can apply for their share of a $95 million privacy lawsuit settlement.
Anyone who owned a Siri-enabled device, including an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch or MacBook, between Sept. 17, 2014, and Dec. 31, 2024, is eligible to receive a payment.
Apple agreed to the payments to settle a class action lawsuit alleging the virtual assistant recorded conversations without permission. The deadline to file a claim is Wednesday. Payments are capped at $20 per device, but the final amount will depend on how many claims are submitted.
Some users may have received an email or postcard notifying them they are eligible, but customers who did not receive an email or postcard can still file a claim on the settlement website. They will need to provide an email address and the devices’ serial numbers or purchase records to file a claim.
Tens of millions of consumers owned Apple devices during the time period covered in the suit, but only 3% to 5% of users are expected to file a claim, according to court documents.
The company was sued in 2019 for allegedly violating users’ privacy after The Guardian reported that contractors hired by the company to review Siri’s responses to prompts heard recordings that included medical information, drug deals and couples having sex.
Apple apologized that year for the privacy breaches but denies any wrongdoing.
“Siri has been engineered to protect user privacy from the beginning,” the company said in a statement. “Siri data has never been used to build marketing profiles and it has never been sold to anyone for any purpose.”
A final hearing to approve the settlement is set for Aug. 1, according to the claim administrator website. It is not clear when payments will be distributed.
Technology giants have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years over privacy.
In 2023, Meta, which owns Facebook, agreed to pay $725 million to resolve a class action privacy lawsuit alleging it allowed Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm linked to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, to access millions of users’ personal information.
The same year, Google agreed to a $23 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit accusing the company of “storing and intentionally, systematically and repeatedly divulging” users’ search queries and histories to third-party websites and companies.
The Apple claim website is online at lopezvoiceassistantsettlement.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.