Correction — October 2, 2026: The earlier FAQ incorrectly gave the Siri settlement as $250 million. The settlement administrator identifies a $95 million fund. We also clarified the distinction between allegations and findings.
The public record
For a decade, the smart-speaker industry hid behind a single sentence: "the device only listens after the wake word." Unintended activations and the handling of recordings have raised privacy concerns.
The 2025 Apple Siri settlement was the watershed. Apple agreed to a $95M settlement to resolve a class action alleging that Siri activated unintentionally and recorded private conversations that were then shared with advertisers. The settlement resolves allegations rather than proving each claim.
What the public record shows
Apple Siri settlement (Jan 2025) — Apple agreed to a $95M settlement to resolve a US class action alleging that Siri activated unintentionally and that recordings were shared with advertisers. Reuters has the filing details.
FTC v. Amazon (May 2023) — $25M settlement over Alexa retention of children's voice recordings in violation of COPPA, including a deletion order. The FTC press release documents the specific retention practices.
CNIL guidance on smart speakers (2024) — the French regulator's published opinion sets out the consent and retention rules every EU smart-speaker vendor is now expected to follow, and is the basis for ongoing enforcement work.
Why it matters technically
A "wake word" is just a low-power neural net listening for a phoneme pattern. It runs continuously. When it fires (correctly or not), the device opens a buffer that includes a few seconds before the wake word — to capture what you actually asked. That buffer is the source of every "we didn't mean to record that" headline of the past six years.
A 2020 Northeastern study cataloged dozens of phrases that reliably misfire popular assistants. The vendors knew. Recordings were graded by human reviewers in multiple jurisdictions, with the contractors often hearing intimate, medical, or financial material.
What you should do
Mute the mic physically when you don't need it. Most modern devices have a hardware switch. Use it.
Disable "help improve" / "voice review" opt-ins. They are usually on by default. Turn them off in the companion app.
Auto-delete recordings at 3 months (or "never save"). Both Amazon and Google now expose this. Most users never set it.
Don't put a microphone-equipped device in a bedroom. Just don't. The smart-display industry still hopes you will.
The "always-listening" device is now legally obligated to actually listen less. Hold them to it.