Microsoft Teams Class Action — Lawsuit Alleges Voice Data Collected Without Consent During Meetings
By Steve Levine
Published: March 11, 2026
Status: Newly Filed — No Settlement
Potential Damages: $1,000 – $5,000 per violation under Illinois BIPA
If you have ever participated in a Microsoft Teams meeting where the transcription feature was turned on, your voice may have been turned into a biometric profile — a "voiceprint" — without your knowledge or consent.
A class action lawsuit filed on February 5, 2026, alleges that Microsoft illegally collected and stored voiceprints from Teams meeting participants through its real-time transcription feature. The transcription feature, introduced in 2021, works by analyzing each speaker's voice — including pitch, tone, and timbre — to figure out who is saying what. This process, called "diarization," creates unique biometric voice profiles for each participant. The lawsuit argues this constitutes collection of biometric data under Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) — and Microsoft never told users it was happening, never explained how the data would be used or stored, and never obtained anyone's written consent.
Unlike a password, you cannot change your voiceprint once it has been captured. That is exactly why Illinois enacted BIPA in 2008 — to protect biometric data that, once compromised, cannot be undone.
The plaintiffs want to represent all individuals who participated in Microsoft Teams meetings with live transcription enabled while they resided in (or were present in) Illinois from March 1, 2021 to the present. People who voluntarily enrolled in a Microsoft Intelliframe voice profile are excluded.
Microsoft Teams has over 320 million monthly active users, so the potential class could be very large. If you live or work in Illinois and have participated in any transcribed Teams meeting since 2021, you may be a potential class member.
Under BIPA, damages are $1,000 per negligent violation or $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation (or actual damages, whichever is greater). BIPA has produced some of the largest privacy settlements in history, including a $650 million settlement against Facebook for facial recognition and a $68 million settlement against Instagram.
No settlement has been reached in this case. Microsoft has not yet responded to the complaint in court.
Caption: Basich et al. v. Microsoft Corporation, Case No. 2:26-cv-00422
Court: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington
Filed: February 5, 2026
Plaintiffs: Alex Basich, Kristin Bondlow, Marquis Boyce, Jessica Brewer, Jamari Brown (all Illinois residents)
Judge: Hon. John H. Chun
Status: Newly filed — no settlement, no claim form
How Do I Find Class Action Settlements?
Find all the latest class actions you can qualify for by getting notified of new lawsuits as soon as they are open to claims:
• Windows Central — Microsoft Teams Hit With Class Action for Allegedly Collecting Voice Data (Feb 2026)
• UC Today — Microsoft Teams Lawsuit: BIPA Class Action Targets AI Voice Data (Feb 2026)
Filing Class Action Settlement Claims
This case has not settled and no claim form is available. This page is for informational purposes only. OpenClassActions.com is a consumer advocacy and class action news site, and is not a class action administrator or a law firm.
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