July 19, 2023

Amazon.com Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary Amazon.com Services LLC have agreed to pay a $25 million civil penalty to resolve allegations that its voice assistant service Alexa violated the Federal Trade Commission Act, Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule.  Since at least May 2018, Amazon has retained indefinitely and by default voice recordings of children interacting with Alexa. The company also falsely represented that such recordings, including transcriptions and geolocation information, could be deleted by Alexa users, when in fact user deletion requests were not always honored.  As part of the settlement, Amazon will have to identify and delete inactive child profiles and notify users about its retention and deletion practices.  DOJ

Tagged in: Cybersecurity and Data Breaches, Misrepresentations,