Otter.ai sued a suspected privacy violation in California

A class action lawsuit against Otter.AI was filed in California for alleged privacy violations.

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

The lawsuit alleges that Otter.ai recorded a private conversation without consent. The suit specifically targets Otter Nottaker from Otter.ai, a tool that records and transfers calls in real time.

Otter.ai sued on alleged privacy violations

According to a report by Gizmodo, Brewer said in the lawsuit that he does not have an Otter.ai account. However, a suspicious violation occurred when he joined a Zoom call running Otter Note Taker.

Brewers claim they didn't know that the tool would capture and store the data. He also added that he had no idea that the meeting would be used to train otter speech recognition and machine learning models.

Additionally, the lawsuit argues that otter notes tackerbots can join meetings without the need for express consent from the host or other person participating in the call.

For these reasons, the lawsuit alleges that otter.ai violates state and federal eavesdropping and privacy laws.

Otter.ai problem statement

In a statement sent via email to Gizmodo, the representative of Otter.ai, he said, “It is important to note that while reviewing the issue, Otter will not begin recording on its own.”

“The record only occurs when initiated by an otter user, and our terms and conditions make it clear that you are responsible for obtaining the necessary permissions before you do so,” the representative added.