Newsweek reported “a lawsuit against Amazon was filed this week by some healthcare workers who allege that their Alexa devices have been recording their conversations.” According to Newsweek, “Healthcare IT News reported that four plaintiffs believe their Amazon Alexa devices may have seized information, such as private conversations with patients, that are HIPAA protected.” The suit said, “Amazon’s conduct in surreptitiously recording consumers has violated federal and state wiretapping, privacy, and consumer protection laws.”

Modern Healthcare reported similarly that “healthcare workers across the U.S. have filed a proposed class-action against Amazon.com, alleging the Seattle-based e-commerce giant failed to warn users that its Alexa smart speakers are always eavesdropping, leading those providers to potentially violate patient privacy law.” The lawsuit “comes on behalf of a customer service employee, a substance abuse counselor, an individual in the psychiatric field and a healthcare company employee, who ‘communicate and work with HIPAA-protected information that Alexa may have captured without [their] intent.’”

From the news release of the American Association for Justice.

Federal judge says Google must face voice assistant privacy class action

Reuters reported, “A federal judge said Google must face much of a lawsuit accusing the company of illegally recording and disseminating private conversations of people who accidentally trigger its voice-activated Voice Assistant on their smartphones.” US District Judge Beth Labson Freeman allowed “plaintiffs in the proposed class action [to] pursue claims that Google and its parent Alphabet Inc violated California privacy laws, some claims that they violated federal privacy laws, and some breach of contract claims.” Judge Freeman “said the plaintiffs showed they used Google Assistant-enabled devices often enough to have had a reasonable expectation of privacy when speaking.”

From the news release of the American Association for Justice.