Google is preparing to pay $68 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleges it secretly recorded private conversations on Android users’ phones.
The lawsuit focuses on Google Assistant, a virtual assistant available on many Android devices.
The plaintiffs allege that the assistant recorded private conversations after being inadvertently activated and that the recordings were shared with advertisers to support targeted advertising.
Google Assistant is designed to stay in standby mode until it detects a wake-up phrase like “Hey Google.”
Once activated, the device records audio and sends it to Google servers for processing.
Google claims that no audio is sent while the assistant remains in standby mode.
The lawsuit claims that the assistant is sometimes unintentionally activated when it misinterprets background speech as a trigger phrase, resulting in recordings of conversations intended to be private.
The proposed deal was filed Friday in federal court in California and requires approval from U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman, Reuters reports.
In a filing seeking to resolve the case, Google denies wrongdoing and says it accepts the settlement to avoid continued litigation.
The case is being filed as a class action, meaning payments would be distributed among eligible claimants who owned Google devices since May 2016.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys can seek up to one-third of the settlement, or approximately $22 million, in legal fees.
The settlement follows a similar case earlier this year in which Apple agreed to pay $95 million to resolve allegations related to its Siri voice assistant, while denying any wrongdoing.
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