Google will pay $68 million to settle accusations of secretly recording users

Los Angeles. – Google agreed to pay $68 million to settle a class-action lawsuit in California in which users of smart devices allege that its voice assistant secretly recorded their conversations, violating privacy. The agreement, which still needs a judge’s approval, was presented last week in a federal court in San Jose (California). The tech giant was accused of illegally recording and disseminating private conversations collected through Google Assistant. The lawsuit alleges that this tool was activated and recorded the user’s communications even without the user intentionally activating it with key phrases such as “Hey Google” or “Okay Google”, or when a button on a device is manually pressed, be it smartphones, laptops, tablets, media players, wireless headphones or Google virtual assistants, which allow recording.

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Big tech companies face similar lawsuits

In the legal complaint, users claimed to have received personalized ads based on what they had recently conversed about. Google Assistant allegedly recorded conversations about financial matters, personal data, and work-related issues, among other topics. While other tech giants have faced several lawsuits from users alleging that their devices spy on them. Last year, Google agreed to pay about $1.4 billion to the state of Texas to resolve several lawsuits over illegal tracking of people’s location. In addition, in 2021, Apple paid $95 million to settle lawsuits alleging that its voice assistant, Siri, had recorded conversations without users’ authorization.

So far, Google, owned by Alphabet, has not commented on the current agreement.