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The Federal Trade Commission says Alexa and Ring devices violated customer privacy
Amazon will have to pay more than $30 million in consumer refunds and fines for violating the privacy of customers who own Alexa and Ring devices under settlement agreements filed Wednesday.
In one complaint, the Federal Trade Commission alleged that Amazon not only failed to delete the voice data of children at the request of their parents, but also kept the recordings indefinitely in order to refine its algorithm.
In another, the FTC accuses Ring ‒ now owned by Amazon – of allowing its employees to access customers’ private videos and exposing them to hackers.
In the first instance, Amazon violated federal protection laws, the FTC said. In the second, Ring’s actions committed “egregious violations of users’ privacy.”
In a statement sent to USA TODAY, Amazon said the company takes its “responsibilities to our customers and their families very seriously.”
“While we disagree with the FTC’s claims regarding both Alexa and Ring, and deny violating the law, these settlements put these matters behind us,” the company said.Alexa allegations
Under the Alexa settlement, which needs approval by a federal court, the FTC and the Justice Department will require Amazon to delete inactive child accounts, some voice recordings and geolocation information, and Amazon won’t be allowed to use such data for its algorithms, according to a news release announcing the settlement.
“Amazon prominently and repeatedly assured its users, including parents, that they could delete voice recordings collected from its Alexa voice assistant and geolocation information collected by the Alexa app,” the FTC said. “The company, however, failed to follow through on these promises when it kept some of this information for years and used the data it unlawfully retained to help improve its Alexa algorithm.
