Actions related to Alexa order Amazon to overhaul its data deletion practices and implement stricter, more transparent privacy measures
Published Date – 07:40 AM, Fri – 2 June 23
Washington: Amazon on Wednesday agreed to pay a $25 million civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated children’s privacy laws and deceived parents for years by saving voice and location data of children recorded by its popular Alexa voice assistant.
Separately, the company agreed to pay $5.8 million in refunds to customers for alleged privacy violations with its Ring doorbell camera.
Actions related to Alexa require Amazon to overhaul its data deletion practices and implement stricter and more transparent privacy measures. It also ordered the tech giant to delete certain data collected by its connected digital assistants, which people use for everything from checking the weather to playing games and queuing up music.
“Amazon’s history of misleading parents, retaining recordings of children indefinitely, and defying parents’ removal requests violates COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), FCT’s head of consumer protection, Samuel Levine, said in a statement. ) and sacrificed privacy for profit.” The 1998 law was designed to protect children from harm online.
“When parents ask Amazon to delete their children’s Alexa voice data, the company doesn’t delete all the data,” FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said in a statement. The agency ordered the company to delete inactive child accounts and certain voice and geolocation data.
Amazon retains children’s data to improve its voice-recognition algorithms, the artificial intelligence behind Alexa that powers Echo and other smart speakers, Bedoya said.
He added that the FTC’s complaint sends a message to all tech companies “sprinting to do the same” in the fierce race to develop AI datasets.
“There is nothing more heartfelt for a parent than hearing their child’s voice,” Bedoya, the father of two, tweeted.
Amazon said last month that it had sold more than 500 million Alexa-enabled devices worldwide and that usage of the service increased 35 percent last year.
In the Ring case, the FTC said Amazon’s home security camera subsidiary allowed employees and contractors to access consumers’ private videos and provided lax security measures that allowed hackers to take control of certain accounts.
Amazon acquired California-based Ring in 2018, and many of the violations alleged by the FTC occurred before the acquisition. Ring is required to pay $5.8 million in consumer refunds under the FTC’s order.
Amazon said it disagreed with the FTC’s charges against Alexa and Ring and denied breaking the law. But it said the settlement was “putting these things behind”. “Our devices and services are designed to protect our customers’ privacy and give them control over their experience,” the Seattle-based company said.
In addition to the fine in the Alexa case, the proposed order prohibits Amazon from using the deleted geolocation and voice information to create or improve any data products. The order also requires Amazon to create privacy procedures for its use of geolocation information.
The proposed order must be approved by a federal judge.
FTC commissioners voted unanimously to charge Amazon in both cases.
