Data Privacy

Settled a class action lawsuit for $95 million in January 2025 over claims that Siri secretly recorded private conversations — even without activation — and shared them with third-party advertisers for over a decade (2014–2024). Users received up to $20 per qualifying device. Court granted final approval; payments distributed January 2026.

Mercury closed accounts of customers in Ukraine, Belarus, Croatia, and Nicaragua in 2024 without warning, citing compliance review. Affected founders criticized lack of due process.

Wired investigation found Perplexity ignores robots.txt and scrapes content from blocked domains using stealth crawlers, contradicting public statements about respecting publisher preferences.

23andMe massive data breach exposed 6.9M users. Genetic data privacy concerns.

In September 2022, Revolut confirmed a targeted cyberattack exposed the personal data of 50,150 customers (0.16% of its user base). Attackers used social engineering to gain access to Revolut's database, accessing names, email addresses, phone numbers, and partial payment card data. No PINs or passwords were exposed. The breach raised concerns about database security practices at one of Europe's fastest-growing neobanks, which had 20 million customers at the time.

Cambridge Analytica harvested 87M users' data without consent for political targeting. $5B FTC fine (largest ever). $725M class action settlement. Zuckerberg testified to Congress. Data shared with 6,000+ developers without user knowledge.