A new class action has been filed against Apple, claiming repeated violations of state wiretapping, privacy, and consumer fraud laws.

The filing was made by Joaquin Serrano, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Her lawyers write: “This case relates to a flagrant violation of consumer privacy.

“Quite simply, Apple unlawfully records and uses consumers’ personal information and activity on its consumer mobile devices and applications (“apps”), even after consumers explicitly indicate through Apple’s mobile device settings that they do not want their data and information shared.

“This activity amounts to an enormous wealth of data that Apple collects and uses for its financial gain.”

The suit argues that Apple is publicly presenting itself as a leader in privacy protection, despite the opposite being true.

“As privacy concerns have grown, Apple has sought to position itself as a leader by touting how its mobile devices allow users to control the information they share,” the suit reads, pointing out the Apple Privacy Policy states:

“At Apple, we respect your ability to know, access, correct, transfer, restrict the processing of, and delete your personal data.”

The Apple App Store “User Privacy and Data Use” page similarly declares:

“The App Store is designed to be a safe and trusted place for users to discover apps created by talented developers around the world. Apps on the App Store are held to a high standard for privacy, security, and content because nothing is more important than maintaining users’ trust.”

The suit explains that Apple “even provides specific instructions to users to explain how to control what data Apple collects” yet “does not honour users’ requests to restrict data sharing.”

Therefore, the suit concludes, “Apple’s practices deceive consumers and its collection of data of users who have specifically followed Apple’s instructions to prevent sharing of its data constitute an unlawful interception of a communication and violate, inter alia, Pennsylvania’s wiretapping laws.”

Apple is yet to reply to the suit.

Just last week, Apple was fined the equivalent of A$12.5 million by France’s data protection commission for illegally installing trackers for targeted advertising onto iPhones.

The body found that Apple did not “obtain the consent of French iPhone users (iOS 14.6 version) before depositing and/or writing identifiers used for advertising purposes on their terminals.”