A federal judge in Seattle on Monday said tens of millions of users of Amazon.com’s cloud-based voice service Alexa can band together in a class action accusing the tech giant of deceptively recording and collecting their private conversations.
The Alexa users met the legal threshold to sue in a nationwide class action for monetary damages and a court order to stop the alleged privacy violations, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik said in his ruling.
The lawsuit, brought on behalf of users who registered one or more Alexa devices, alleges Amazon violated Washington’s consumer protection law by failing to disclose the retention and use of recordings for commercial gain.
Amazon declined to comment. Lead attorneys for the consumers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Class-action status will allow the plaintiffs to pursue large-scale claims against Amazon as a group, as opposed to filing individual claims.
“The fact that millions of people were allegedly injured by the same conduct suggests that representative litigation is the only way to both adjudicate related claims and avoid overwhelming the courts,” Lasnik wrote.
Lasnik declined the plaintiffs’ request to certify additional classes, including for people in California and other states who lived with someone who had a registered Alexa device.
Amazon launched Alexa in 2014 as a virtual assistant that responds to a command prompt, or “wake” word, such as “hi, Alexa.”
The plaintiffs alleged Amazon designed the technology “to illegally and surreptitiously intercept billions of private conversations” that extended beyond commands aimed at Alexa.
Amazon has denied any wrongdoing in the lawsuit, which was filed in 2021. The company argued there was no evidence that Alexa “ever captured any plaintiff’s ‘conversation’ or other communication.” It said it built Alexa with safeguards to prevent accidental activations.
The plaintiffs are also seeking a court order that would force Amazon to destroy any existing recordings and related data.
