Amazon has agreed to pay a $25 million Dollar civil penalty for violating a child privacy law and deceiving parents by keeping their kids’ voice and location data recorded by Alexa, its popular voice assistant.
Separately, the company has also agreed to pay $5.8 million in customer refunds for alleged privacy violations involving its doorbell camera ring. The Federal Trade Commission accuses Amazon of misleading parents, keeping children’s recordings indefinitely, and not deleting requested information when asked to do so all of which violate the Child Online Privacy Protection Act. The 1998 law is designed to shield children from online harm.
The FT commissioner said Amazon kept the kids’ data to refine its voice recognition algorithm and artificial intelligence behind Alexa. He said the FT complaint sends a message to all tech companies who are in fierce competition in developing ai datasets. Amazon says it disagrees with the FT’s claims on both Alexa and ring but has agreed to settle these matters.
In addition to the fine, Amazon is required to create a privacy program for its use of geolocation information and is prohibited from using deleted geolocation and voice information to create or improve any data product. These proposed orders must still be approved by federal judges before they can take effect.
