Otter.ai must continue defending key claims over its meeting-recording and data practices after a U.S. federal judge rejected the company’s attempt to dismiss the core of a consolidated privacy lawsuit.
Judge Eumi K. Lee of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Otter’s motion to dismiss in part on August 13, but allowed the central claims under federal wiretap, California privacy and Illinois biometric-privacy law to move forward.
The ruling does not determine whether Otter broke the law, but it finds that the plaintiffs have pleaded enough facts for several allegations to proceed beyond the initial motion-to-dismiss stage.
An Otter.ai spokesperson declined to comment on the ruling when contacted by UC Today.
Claims Over Recording and Data Use Survive
The action, In re Otter.AI Privacy Litigation, brings together four proposed class suits filed between August and September 2025.
The plaintiffs allege that Otter’s meeting assistant joined Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet calls, then recorded, transcribed and retained communications without the consent required by applicable laws. They further allege the company captured voiceprints through speaker-identification capabilities and used meeting information to improve its products and machine-learning models.
Otter argued that it was not a third-party interceptor, characterising its service as a tool used at the direction of a meeting host or account holder. It also argued that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated a sufficiently concrete injury to bring their claims in federal court.
Judge Lee rejected those arguments at this stage.
The order found that the complaint plausibly alleges Otter retained and used conversational data for its own commercial purposes, including the development of machine-learning models and services. That was enough to allow the plaintiffs to continue arguing that Otter could be treated as a third-party eavesdropper, rather than simply a service provider operating on a host’s behalf.
That distinction will be central as the case progresses. A meeting organiser may be responsible for obtaining consent under a provider’s terms of service, but the legal analysis becomes more complicated if a vendor independently retains or benefits from participant data.
Speaking to UC Today in May, Otter.ai CEO Sam Liang said the company wasn't "afraid" of the lawsuit.
"Lawsuits are part of doing business, especially when you are doing something new or disrupting a old model – some people are not comfortable, so we'll just have to deal with that."
"But if you think about it, the way we capture meeting notes is no different than Microsoft Copilot or Zoom or Google Meeting notetakers, so we're not afraid of the lawsuit. I think we're on the right side of history."
The court also found that alleged capture and retention of private medical, financial and professional conversations could constitute a concrete privacy injury, allowing the case to remain in federal court.
Voiceprint Claims Remain in Play
Judge Lee allowed claims under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) to proceed.
