Tech giants sued over ‘stealing’ voices of well-known journalists, voice actors to train AI
Tech giants sued over ‘stealing’ voices of well-known journalists, voice actors to train AI
Publish Date: 2026-05-15 17:44:00
Source Domain: capitolnewsillinois.com
Article Summary
- A group of well-known Chicago journalists, podcasters and voice actors are behind nine class-action lawsuits filed this week alleging major tech companies used their voices without their permission in order to train AI products.
- The lawsuits represent a new area of focus for Illinois’ strongest-in-the-nation biometric data privacy law, which has spawned thousands of lawsuits in the last decade or so. The litigation has netted Illinoisans millions of dollars in settlements, mostly over the collection of employees’ fingerprints in timeclock technology.
- Plaintiffs include locally famous broadcast journalists Carol Marin and Phil Rogers, both retired from Chicago’s NBC 5 news station, along with prolific audiobook narrators and podcasters.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
CHICAGO — Over hundreds of pages in legal filings this week, a group of well-known Chicago-based journalists, podcasters and voice actors accused tech giants like Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and others of “stealing” their voices to train Artificial intelligence.
The nine class action lawsuits, filed in Chicago’s federal court between Monday and Wednesday, represent a new frontier for Illinois’ strongest-in-the-nation biometric data privacy law. In the last decade or so, the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, or BIPA, has spawned thousands of lawsuits against companies alleged to have collected and stored biometric data from employees and customers without proper notice or consent.
The vast majority of that litigation — which has paid out millions of dollars to Illinoisans mostly via class-action settlements — has been over employee fingerprints collected by timeclock technology, though Facebook’s $650 million settlement in 2020 was with users over facial recognition.
Read more: Court rulings supercharge Illinois’ strongest-in-nation biometric privacy law
But as companies adopted…
