Tech News Summary:
- Amazon is set to pay $25 million to settle allegations that its Alexa voice assistant violated a federal law protecting children’s privacy, according to federal regulators. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was recently applied against other tech companies.
- Over 800,000 children under the age of 13 have their own Alexa profiles and the FTC has also fined Amazon for Ring, its home surveillance company. The company allowed employees and contractors to view private videos from customers’ homes and is being fined an additional $5.8 million.
- The recent launch of ChatGPT has sparked an AI arms race on Silicon Valley. The $25 million fine is intended to send a signal to all tech companies competing to use big data to refine AI models and highlights the need to update COPPA for the modern Internet.
In a recent development, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has settled a longstanding lawsuit with Amazon over privacy concerns related to its popular Alexa digital assistant, particularly for kids. Under the settlement, Amazon has agreed to pay a fine of $10 million and take several steps to improve the privacy protections for children using Alexa.
The lawsuit, which was initially filed by a coalition of child advocacy groups in 2019, alleged that Amazon’s collection of voice recordings through Alexa devices violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires companies to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13.
The FTC echoed these concerns, stating that Amazon had failed to obtain sufficient parental consent for its voice recordings and had also failed to provide adequate information to parents about how their children’s data would be used.
As part of the settlement, Amazon has agreed to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting voice recordings from children, to delete all previously-collected recordings associated with children under 13, and to implement a system to allow parents to review and delete their children’s voice recordings. Amazon has also agreed to provide more comprehensive information about its data collection practices for kids and to conduct regular compliance audits.
For parents with Alexa devices in their homes, it is important to be aware of these changes and to take steps to protect their children’s privacy. This may include reviewing their Alexa settings, limiting the use of voice recordings, and discussing with their children the importance of online privacy and the potential risks associated with sharing personal information.
Overall, while the settlement represents a positive step towards protecting children’s privacy online, it also highlights the need for ongoing vigilance and advocacy to ensure that companies are held accountable for their data collection practices.