Federal Lawsuit Accuses Otter.ai of Secretly Recording Private Conversations for AI Training Without Permission
In a federal class-action lawsuit, allegations have been made against Otter.ai for secretly recording and using private conversations without consent, to train its popular transcription service – Otter Notebook. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses Otter of breaching privacy and wiretap laws.
The plaintiff, Justin Brewer of San Jacinto, CA, claims his privacy was violated when he discovered Otter had surreptitiously recorded a confidential conversation. The AI-powered transcription service, which transcribes real-time meetings on platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams without obtaining attendee permissions or alerting participants about the recordings being shared with Otter, is at the heart of the lawsuit.
The suit contends that Otter derives financial gain from unknowingly sharing chats of Californians, and seeks to represent others in similar situations. As of now, over 25 million people use Otter’s AI transcription tools, which have recorded and processed more than a billion meetings since its inception in 2016.
In recent months, concerns about privacy have arisen as Otter has become more prevalent in workplaces worldwide. Users have shared accounts of Otter’s automated recording tools malfunctioning on platforms like X and Reddit. Last year, an AI researcher reported that Otter had recorded a Zoom meeting with investors, then provided a transcription containing sensitive business details discussed after he left the meeting – leading to deal termination, as reported by The Washington Post.
Politico’s China correspondent raised concerns about Otter sharing user data with third parties, potentially allowing access for the Chinese government to raw transcriptions of conversations with dissidents. However, Otter has stated it does not share data with foreign governments or law enforcement agencies.
On Reddit, users have complained about Otter joining meetings automatically when linked to workplace calendars and recording chats without consent. The lawsuit highlights this issue, stating that if someone has an Otter account and joins a virtual meeting, the software typically asks the host for permission to record, but fails to ask all other participants by default.
Otter claims it de-identifies audio before feeding it into its machine learning systems to improve an AI speech recognition feature. However, the lawsuit raises questions about Otter’s ability to effectively anonymize data, as it provides no public explanation of its “de-identifying” process. The suit alleges that Otter’s de-identification process does not ensure confidential information removal or speaker anonymity.