The tech giant has faced accusations of eavesdropping on customers through the virtual assistant Siri and the claimants allege that voice recordings were shared with advertisers.

In the preliminary settlement, Apple has denied any wrongdoing and also rejects claims that it "recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete, conversations recorded as the result of a Siri activation".

Lawyers for the company also say they will confirm that they have "permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected by Apple prior to October 2019".

The claimants say the tech behemoth recorded people who mistakenly activated the virtual assistant - without using the phrase 'Hey, Siri' to trigger it.

They say that advertisers who received the recordings were able to look for keywords to target their products more effectively.

Lead plaintiff Fumiko Lopez alleges that both she and her daughter were recorded without their consent and claims that they were presented with targeted adverts after discussing products such as Air Jordans.

According to court documents, each claimant based in the United States could be paid up to $20 per Siri-enabled device they owned between 2014 and 2019.

Apple has proposed a decision date of 14 February in the court in California.

With the settlement, Apple has not only denied wrongdoing but also avoided the danger of facing a court case that could have resulted in a far larger payout.