Journalists and narrators sue tech giants for using voiceprints to train AI
A group of award-winning journalists, podcasters and audiobook narrators sued multiple tech companies alleging their voice recordings were scraped from the internet and used without permission to train AI voice systems in violation of Illinois biometric privacy law.
What happened
A group of journalists, podcasters and audiobook narrators sued multiple tech companies in Illinois federal court, alleging their voice recordings were used to train AI systems without permission.
The plaintiffs include Chicago journalist Carol Marin and Pulitzer Prize winners Yohance Lacour and Alison Flowers. They allege Google scraped thousands of hours of voice recordings from the internet to train Google Assistant, Gemini Live and other voice AI systems.
Reported impact
The plaintiffs allege that their recordings match the profile of training audio Google's documentation identifies as optimal—long-form, single-speaker, studio-quality, professionally produced.
The lawsuit alleges violations of publicity and biometric data privacy rights under Illinois law.
Index analysis
The lawsuit is one of dozens filed by authors, news outlets and others against tech companies for allegedly using their work without permission to train AI systems.
This case follows a separate lawsuit by former NPR host David Greene against Google in California in January for allegedly misusing his voice in AI training, and similar allegations against AI voiceover startup Lovo brought by voice actors in New York.
Governance controls
Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), passed in 2008, regulates the collection, use, safeguarding, handling, storage, retention, and destruction of biometric identifiers including voiceprints.
Previous settlements under BIPA have been reached with Clearview AI, Facebook, and Six Flags.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.