Tech giants sued over ‘stealing’ voices of well-known journalists, voice actors to train AI

Nine class action lawsuits have been filed in Chicago federal court against Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and others. The lawsuits, brought by journalists and voice actors, allege that the companies violated Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act by using recordings of their voices without consent to train AI voice models.

The complaints accuse the tech giants of 'ingesting recordings' of voices to train 'foundational voice models'. Illinois' BIPA prohibits the collection of biometric data, including voiceprints, without prior notice and written consent.

The lawsuits underscore broader concerns about how tech companies gather training data for AI systems, particularly when the data includes unique biometric identifiers. As of the report, none of the named companies had publicly responded to the allegations.