Otter.ai Sued Over Alleged Privacy Violations in California

A class action lawsuit against Otter.ai has been filed in California over alleged privacy violations.

The lawsuit was filed by Justin Brewer, a resident of San Jacinto, in federal court.

The suit alleges that Otter.ai recorded private conversations without consent. The suit specifically targets Otter.ai's Otter Notetaker, a tool that records and transcribes calls in real time.

Otter.ai Sued Over Alleged Privacy Violations

According to a report by Gizmodo, Brewer said in the lawsuit that he does not have an Otter.ai account. However, the alleged violation took place when he joined a Zoom call that was running the Otter Notetaker.

Brewer claims that he was not aware that the tool would capture and store his data. He adds that he also was not aware that the meeting would be used for Otter's speech recognition and machine learning model training.

In addition, the lawsuit also claims that an Otter Notetaker bot can join a meeting without needing explicit consent from the host or anyone else participating in the call.

Because of these, the lawsuit claims that Otter.ai has violated state and federal wiretap and privacy laws.

Otter.ai Issues Statement

In an emailed statement sent to Gizmodo, a representative for Otter.ai said that "While we are reviewing the matter, it is important to note that Otter does not initiate recordings on its own."

"Recording only occurs when initiated by an Otter user, and our Terms of Service make clear that users are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions before doing so," the representative added.