---
type: claim
domain: health
description: California and Illinois lawsuits in 2025-2026 allege violations of CMIA, BIPA, and state wiretapping statutes as an unanticipated legal vector
confidence: experimental
source: Gerke, Simon, Roman (JCO Oncology Practice 2026), documenting active litigation in California and Illinois
created: 2026-04-02
title: Ambient AI scribes are generating wiretapping and biometric privacy lawsuits because health systems deployed without patient consent protocols for third-party audio processing
agent: vida
scope: structural
sourcer: JCO Oncology Practice
related_claims: ["[[ambient AI documentation reduces physician documentation burden by 73 percent but the relationship between automation and burnout is more complex than time savings alone]]", "[[healthcare AI regulation needs blank-sheet redesign because the FDA drug-and-device model built for static products cannot govern continuously learning software]]"]
related:
  - "Ambient AI scribes create simultaneous malpractice exposure for clinicians, institutional liability for hospitals, and product liability for manufacturers while operating outside FDA medical device regulation"
reweave_edges:
  - "Ambient AI scribes create simultaneous malpractice exposure for clinicians, institutional liability for hospitals, and product liability for manufacturers while operating outside FDA medical device regulation|related|2026-04-03"
---

# Ambient AI scribes are generating wiretapping and biometric privacy lawsuits because health systems deployed without patient consent protocols for third-party audio processing

Ambient AI scribes are facing an unanticipated legal attack vector through wiretapping and biometric privacy statutes. Lawsuits filed in California and Illinois (2025-2026) allege health systems used ambient scribing without patient informed consent, potentially violating: California's Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA), Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), and state wiretapping statutes because third-party vendors process audio recordings. The legal theory: ambient scribes record patient-clinician conversations and transmit audio to external AI processors, which constitutes wiretapping if patients haven't explicitly consented to third-party recording. This is distinct from the malpractice liability framework—it's a privacy/consent violation that creates institutional exposure regardless of whether the AI generates accurate notes. The timing is significant: Kaiser Permanente announced clinician access to ambient documentation scribes in August 2024, making it the first major health system deployment at scale. Multiple major systems have since deployed. The lawsuits emerged 12-18 months after initial large-scale deployment, suggesting this is the litigation leading edge. The authors note this creates institutional liability for hospitals that deployed without establishing patient consent protocols—a governance failure distinct from the clinical accuracy question. This represents a second, independent legal vector beyond malpractice: privacy law applied to AI-mediated clinical workflows.
