Google has agreed to pay $68 million (£51 million) to settle a lawsuit that claimed the company secretly recorded people’s private conversations through their phones.
The lawsuit accused Google Assistant, a voice-controlled feature on many Android devices, of recording conversations without permission. Users said the assistant was sometimes activated by mistake and captured private speech that was never meant to be recorded.
According to the lawsuit, some of these recordings were later shared with advertisers to help create targeted ads.
Google denied any wrongdoing. In court documents, the company said it agreed to the settlement to avoid the cost and risk of continuing the legal fight.
Google Assistant is designed to stay inactive until it hears a wake phrase such as “Hey Google.” Once activated, the device records audio and sends it to Google’s servers for processing. People use the assistant for tasks like checking the weather or controlling smart home devices.
Google says the assistant does not record or send audio while it is in standby mode. However, the lawsuit claimed the software sometimes misunderstood sounds or words as the wake phrase, causing it to turn on accidentally and record private conversations.
The case was filed as a class action lawsuit, meaning it represents a large group of people rather than a single individual. The proposed settlement was submitted on Friday to a federal court in California and must be approved by U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman.
If approved, the settlement would apply to people who owned Google devices dating back to May 2016. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs may seek up to one-third of the settlement, or about $22 million, to cover legal fees.
The case follows a similar lawsuit involving Apple, which agreed in January to pay $95 million to settle claims that its voice assistant Siri recorded users without consent. Apple also denied the allegations.
