Google To Pay $68 Million To Settle Privacy Lawsuit Over Assistant Recordings, Denies Wrongdoing

Hyderabad: Alphabet-owned Google has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a privacy lawsuit, which claimed that the tech giant, through its virtual assistant—Google Assistant—secretly listened to people’s private conversations and shared the recordings with advertisers to deliver targeted advertisements.

The proposed settlement was filed on Friday in a California federal court. The case still requires final approval from US District Judge Beth Labson Freeman. The claim has been brought as a class action lawsuit rather than an individual case, meaning that if the settlement is finalised, the payout will be distributed among many claimants.

Users with Google devices dating back to May 2016 will be eligible for compensation. However, lawyers representing Google users may ask for up to one-third of the settlement, which amounts to about $22m in legal fees.

Even though Google has agreed to settle the lawsuit by paying $68 million, in a court filing, it denied wrongdoing and said it wanted to resolve the matter without litigation.

The company explained that Google Assistant is designed to remain in standby mode until it hears phrases such as "Hey Google" or “Okay Google” to get activated. Once activated, a user’s smartphone records what it hears and sends the audio to Google’s servers, where it can be analysed.

Google emphasised that people use Google Assistant for various tasks, ranging from simple queries—such as weather, gold prices, and news—to controlling smart devices like lights and televisions. It added that the assistant does not send any audio while in standby mode.

However, the lawsuit claimed that Google Assistant sometimes get activated by mistake when the phone misinterprets sounds as activation phrases, leading to the recording of private conversations. The lawsuit alleged that the recordings were shared with advertisers to create targeted advertisements.

Earlier this month, Apple agreed to pay $95 million to settle a similar proceeding alleging that the iPhone listened to some users via Siri without their permission. The Cupertino-based tech giant also denied any wrongdoing and refuted allegations that it had recorded, shared with third parties, or failed to delete conversations triggered by Siri activation without user consent