NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A complaint was filed against Amazon for keeping children's voice recordings and geolocation data from the Alexa app without parents' permission.
According to the complaint from the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, Amazon kept the data of children for years. This is in violation of the The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA), which states that any online service that targets children under 13 must notify parents about the information they are collecting.
The complaint from the FTC states that Amazon has been using the data it collects from Alexa for children for its own financial gain. Amazon users were repeatedly told that they could delete the voice recordings and geolocation information, but Amazon failed to follow through with this promise.
Unless a parent specifically requested to delete the information, Amazon kept it, and even when a parent did request the information be deleted it didn't happen. This violates COPPA.
"Amazon’s history of misleading parents, keeping children’s recordings indefinitely, and flouting parents’ deletion requests violated COPPA and sacrificed privacy for profits,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “COPPA does not allow companies to keep children’s data forever for any reason, and certainly not to train their algorithms.”
A proposed order from the Department of Justice would require Amazon to pay a $25 million civil penalty and delete children's data, geolocation data and other voice recordings. In order for the order to go into effect, it must be approved by the federal court.
