Amazon will pay the Federal Trade Commission more than $30 million to settle allegations of privacy breaches in its Alexa and Ring divisions.
Amazon is to pay more than $30 million to settle alleged privacy breaches over its Alexa voice assistant and Ring doorbell. Amazon was accused of retaining Ring videos and Alexa voice recordings and related geolocation information for years, in some cases without consent and despite consumer requests to delete data.
In a complaint accompanying the settlement, the FTC says Ring gave its employees unrestricted access to videos of customers’ home security systems. In one instance, according to the complaint, a Ring employee viewed thousands of video recordings of at least 81 female users between June and August 2017.looking at the cameras that users had assigned to bathrooms and bedrooms.
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Amazon also settles child protection case
Amazon also agreed to pay a $25 million civil penalty to respond to federal charges that it retained sensitive information collected from children, including their precise location and voice recordings, for years.in violation of a children’s online privacy law.
The case, brought by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, centers on Amazon’s handling of personal data collected from children who conversed with Alexa, the company’s voice-activated virtual assistant.
Under the proposed settlement, Amazon will have to delete inactive child accounts as well as certain voice recordings and geolocation information. It will also be prohibited from using this information to train its algorithms.
” While we disagree with the FTC’s claims regarding Alexa and Ring, and deny violating the law, these regulations put these cases behind us. Amazon said in a statement Wednesday.
