Patagonia has been accused of breaking California privacy law by recording and analyzing customers’ communications without their permission.
The outdoor clothing and equipment provider deploys Talkdesk’s CCaaS offerings to handle customer service communications, with the lawsuit alleging that the vendor intercepts, records, and analyzes every customer and business communication.
As well as the information being accessible to Patagonia, it is also routed directly to Talkdesk’s servers in real-time, where it is transcribed and analyzed by AI models to provide an overview of the customer’s query and emotional state.
While data collection may appear to be fairly standard contact center practice, the suit claims that Patagonia and Talkdesk do not obtain customer consent before recording the communications, which is illegal under California law.
Moreover, the suit also states that Talkdesk “uses obtained communications for its own purposes,” arguing that the customer engagement and real-time data collected is used to advance and improve the company’s solutions.
The lawsuit has been brought forward by Patagonia customer Michelle Gills, on behalf of herself and “all others similarly situated.”
The suit summarizes Gills’ grievance as follows:
“She [Gills] called Patagonia’s customer-service line in January 2024. Ms. Gills expected that her conversations with Patagonia would be kept confidential.
She did not know that Talkdesk was secretly listening to her conversations, nor did she consent to her conversations being intercepted, listened to, recorded, and used by Talkdesk.
"She would not have communicated with Patagonia if she had known this were the case.”
Unpacking the Case
In total, the Class Action Complaint includes four causes of action: two violations of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, an invasion of privacy under California’s constitution, and an intrusion upon seclusion.
It is also important to note that while Talkdesk’s role is discussed throughout the suit, it is Patagonia that is listed as the sole defendant.
From a customer service and experience perspective, the two key tenets of the suit are a lack of customer consent and the economic value of the communications collected by the two companies.
The lawsuit argues that while customers who call Patagonia are told that the conversation “may be recorded for quality training purposes,” they are not informed that the information will be accessed by a third-party (Talkdesk), or how said third-party will use the data.
There is a similar issue with Patagonia’s Privacy Notice, which does not reveal that Talkdesk or any other third party has access to customer communications.
In addition, the suit claims that the Privacy Notice is a “non- binding browser-wrap" that is included as an accessible piece of information, rather than something that customers are required to agree/consent to.
