Nuance Communications Collected Customer Voiceprints in Violation of Ill. Privacy Law, Class Action Claims

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed privacy class action alleges Nuance Communications has violated Illinois law by collecting and using without consent the voiceprints of those who use its interactive customer service phone software.

The 15-page lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court claims Nuance Communications, whose software is used by the likes of FedEx and others who receive voluminous customer service calls daily, has run afoul of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) while increasing the likelihood that proposed class members may be victims of identity theft and/or fraud in the future. 

Enacted in 2008, the Illinois BIPA requires private entities who deal in consumers’ biometric data, such as voiceprints, fingerprints, facial geometries and retinal scans, to meet a number of disclosure and written consent prerequisites before collecting, storing, using or disclosing the information.

According to the lawsuit, Nuance Communications has since 2001 provided voice data-related products and services to hundreds of companies nationwide who interact with thousands of Illinois residents each day. The suit says the defendant’s products and services center on the integration of speech and voice recognition technology that utilizes and relies on voiceprint biometrics. Nuance, the case relays, has come to maintain one of the largest databases of voiceprints, possessing 600 million voiceprints used to authenticate more than eight billion transactions a year. 

With its “Interactive Voice Response” (IVR) software, Nuance can collect and analyze callers’ actual voiceprints to “understand the caller’s request and automatically respond with a personalized response” rather than simply provide a menu of options, the lawsuit says. When a consumer calls a customer service line that uses Nuance’s software, it can extract the voiceprint of the caller to track the interaction and identify whether that individual had previously interacted with the company, among other data, the suit states.

Despite the number of people, particularly in Illinois, who interact with Nuance’s Interactive Voice Response software each day, the company has failed to implement any sort of uniform policy to ensure it obtains written consent from those who interact with the software before obtaining their voiceprint biometrics, the lawsuit alleges.  

As far as FedEx is concerned, customers who call the company are greeted with an automated voice message that asks what they’re calling about, the suit continues. In order to personalize the experience, Nuance’s proprietary artificial intelligence technology collects and analyzes a caller’s voiceprint to determine the caller’s intent, understand the context of any requests, such as “scheduling a pickup” or “tracking a package,” and identify to which department to route the call, according to the complaint.

“Not only does Nuance’s IVR software collect and analyze callers’ voiceprints so that it can interact with them and understand their requests, but it also captures the data obtained and stores it so that it could be provided to a customer service agent if the caller is eventually transferred,” the suit reads. 

Like thousands of other Illinois residents, however, the plaintiff unknowingly had her voiceprint biometrics collected by Nuance when she called FedEx’s automated customer service line in December 2020, the lawsuit claims. 

From the complaint:

“As with the thousands of other putative class members, from the moment that Plaintiff interacted and spoke to Nuance’s IVR, her unique voiceprint was obtained to analyze Plaintiff’s intent, determine the context of her call, prepare information to be passed on to the customer service representative, and to allow FedEx to review the phone call to determine whether there were any issues, errors, or misunderstandings made by Nuance’s IVR. 

However, at no point in time either before the call or during the call was Plaintiff aware that throughout the entire call Nuance’s IVR software was collecting, analyzing, and storing her unique individual voiceprint as she interacted with the IVR system.” 

The case looks to represent all individuals whose voiceprint biometric identifiers or biometric information was collected, captured, stored, transmitted, disseminated or otherwise used by or on behalf of Nuance Communications within Illinois at any time within the applicable statute of limitations period and for whom the company had no written record of consent to do so. 

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.