Article Summary<\/p>\n
A group of well-known Chicago journalists, podcasters and voice actors are behind nine class-action lawsuits filed this week alleging major tech companies used their voices without their permission in order to train AI products.
\nThe lawsuits represent a new area of focus for Illinois\u2019 strongest-in-the-nation biometric data privacy law, which has spawned thousands of lawsuits in the last decade or so. The litigation has netted Illinoisans millions of dollars in settlements, mostly over the collection of employees\u2019 fingerprints in timeclock technology.
\nPlaintiffs include locally famous broadcast journalists Carol Marin and Phil Rogers, both retired from Chicago\u2019s NBC 5 news station, along with prolific audiobook narrators and podcasters.<\/p>\n
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.<\/p>\n
CHICAGO \u2014 Over hundreds of pages in legal filings this week, a group of well-known Chicago-based journalists, podcasters and voice actors accused tech giants like Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and others of \u201cstealing\u201d their voices to train Artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
The nine class action lawsuits, filed in Chicago\u2019s federal court between Monday and Wednesday, represent a new frontier for Illinois\u2019 strongest-in-the-nation biometric data privacy law. In the last decade or so, the state\u2019s Biometric Information Privacy Act, or BIPA, has spawned thousands of lawsuits against companies alleged to have collected and stored biometric data from employees and customers without proper notice or consent.<\/p>\n
The vast majority of that litigation \u2014 which has paid out millions of dollars to Illinoisans mostly via class-action settlements \u2014 has been over employee fingerprints collected by timeclock technology, though Facebook\u2019s $650 million settlement in 2020 was with users over facial recognition.<\/p>\n
Read more: Court rulings supercharge Illinois\u2019 strongest-in-nation biometric privacy law<\/a><\/p>\n But as companies adopted policies to comply with BIPA and the pool of plaintiffs began to dry up, technology has rapidly evolved. Smart security cameras, safety cameras focused on workplaces, online \u201ctry-on\u201d technology that allows users to envision, for example, what a certain pair of glasses would look like on their face, have become popular targets of BIPA litigation.<\/p>\n And with the breakneck speed of AI development, companies focused on building that technology could prove to be the next major focus for BIPA lawyers.<\/p>\n In the cases filed this week, locally famous broadcast journalists like Carol Marin and Phil Rogers, both retired from Chicago\u2019s NBC 5 news station, along with podcast hosts and voice actors allege the companies ingested recordings of their voices in order to train their AI \u201cfoundational voice models.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we are seeing is an illegal and unethical exploitation of talent on a massive scale, and one of the largest violations of biometric privacy ever committed,\u201d Ross Kimbarovsky, an attorney with Chicago-based law firm Loevy & Loevy, said Thursday in a statement announcing the lawsuits<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kimbarovsky accused the companies of disregarding BIPA despite knowing \u201cexactly how to build consent systems that comply with BIPA.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve built a billion-dollar industry on stolen voices because they thought no one would make them pay for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Other plaintiffs include journalist Robin Amer, audiobook narrators and voice actors Lindsay Dorcus and Victoria Nassif, and podcasters Yohance Lacour and Alison Flowers \u2014 all Illinois residents.<\/p>\n Tech heavyweights named<\/p>\n The lawsuits name Amazon, Adobe, Google and its parent company Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung, as well as Facebook parent company Meta, text-to-speech AI company ElevenLabs, and advanced computer chip maker NVIDIA. None of the companies responded to a request for comment on the lawsuits.<\/p>\n BIPA defenders point out that biometric information is unique, and losing control of it can be irrevocable. If an individual\u2019s Social Security number is stolen, for example, it may be a nuisance to get a new one but not impossible. But there\u2019s no remedy for a stolen fingerprint, retinal, voice or face scan, they argue. Under the law, companies deploying this technology must obtain written consent before biometric information is collected.<\/p>\n But the lawsuits allege the companies never gave anyone a chance to give consent for their voiceprints to be ingested into their AI training models.<\/p>\n \u201cNone of them was told that their voice was being used to train Amazon\u2019s commercial voice AI,\u201d the lawsuit against Amazon said. \u201cNone of them was asked. None of them consented.\u201d<\/p>\n A voiceprint \u201cis a digital fingerprint of the human voice,\u201d according to the complaints, which go on to characterize it as \u201ca mathematical representation\u201d of someone\u2019s voice, including pitch, timbre and resonance determined by a speaker\u2019s physiology. A voice is also defined by speech patterns \u201cdeveloped over a lifetime,\u201d including accent, cadence and articulation.<\/p>\n \u201cLike a fingerprint, a voiceprint identifies the individual and cannot be changed,\u201d the lawsuits say. \u201cA Social Security number can be reissued. \u2026 A person whose voiceprint has been taken cannot recover it by altering their voice \u2014 the biological and behavioral patterns that produced the voiceprint are the same ones used to speak every day.\u201d<\/p>\n Voiceprint-focused lawsuits may very well become fertile ground for BIPA, especially if judges weighing the complaints filed this week agree the cases should move forward. Industry experts believe the cases could hinge on whether the voiceprints are identifiable.<\/p>\n In early 2023, upscale grocer Whole Foods \u2014 which was acquired by Amazon in 2017 \u2014 settled a case<\/a> brought by 330 warehouse employees who alleged the company collected their voiceprints without permission and used them to verify workers\u2019 identities. The $300,000 payout was the first BIPA settlement resulting from voiceprint-focused litigation.<\/p>\n