in Newswire Published on February 26, 2024

Class Action Alleges Home Depot, Google ‘Wiretap’ Customer Service Calls

Barulich v. The Home Depot, Inc. et al.

Filed: February 14, 2024 ◆§ 2:24-cv-01253

A consumer claims in a class action that Home Depot allowed his customer service calls to be secretly “wiretapped” by Google without his consent.

Defendant(s)

The Home Depot, Inc. Google LLC

Law(s)

California Invasion of Privacy Act

State(s)

California

Categories

Technology Retail Privacy

A Los Angeles consumer claims in a proposed class action that Home Depot allowed his customer service calls to be secretly “wiretapped” and recorded by Google without his consent.

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The 13-page lawsuit says that since at least 2021, Home Depot has used Google’s Cloud Contact Center AI (CCAI) platform, an artificial intelligence-based customer service product that allows the tech giant to “eavesdrop” into and analyze real-time conversations between callers and live agents.

By utilizing the technology without first obtaining authorization from callers, Home Depot and Google have run afoul of California’s Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), which prohibits third-party monitoring and recording of phone calls without prior consent, the suit alleges.

The plaintiff shares that during his recent calls to Home Depot’s customer service line, he first spoke with a “virtual agent” before being transferred to a live representative. Each time the man spoke to a live customer service agent, he reasonably believed the conversation was only “between himself and Home Depot,” the case contends.

However, unbeknownst to the plaintiff, Google secretly “listened in” and used the CCAI platform to transcribe and analyze the contents of the man’s conversation and suggest potential replies to the live Home Depot representative in real time, the complaint claims.

According to the filing, the plaintiff had no reason to believe that his calls to Home Depot were being disclosed to an unrelated third party, as he had not been informed at the beginning of the conversations that Google would be monitoring and recording the communications.

As such, Home Depot and Google have “worked together” to invade the privacy of the plaintiff and other callers in direct violation of the CIPA, the case summarizes.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in California who called Home Depot during the timeframe in which the retailer permitted Google to access, read and/or learn the contents of callers’ communications via its CCAI service.

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