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posted by takyon on Friday June 14 2019, @02:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the it-hears-you dept.

Does Alexa illegally record children? Amazon sued for allegedly storing conversations without consent

Amazon's Alexa is the target of a pair of lawsuits that allege the voice assistant violates laws in nine states by illegally storing recordings of children on devices such as the Echo or Echo Dot. It's the latest development in an ongoing debate around Alexa and privacy. The suits were filed in courts in Seattle and Los Angeles on Tuesday, on the eve of Amazon unveiling the latest generation of Echo Dot Kids Edition smart speaker.

Announcing the new version of the devices on Wednesday morning, the company attempted to defuse privacy concerns — saying it built its premium "FreeTime" games and media service for kids with the input of family groups. Amazon said it adheres to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The company added, "None of the Alexa skills included within FreeTime Unlimited have access to or collect personal information from children, and there are multiple ways to delete a child's profile or voice recordings."

However, the suits are about the Alexa assistant and Echo devices more broadly, not just the FreeTime service for kids. The suits name nine states — Florida, California, Illinois, Michigan, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington — that prohibit recording conversations without the consent of children or their parents.

"At no point does Amazon warn unregistered users that it is creating persistent voice recordings of their Alexa interactions, let alone obtain their consent to do so," the lawsuits allege. The suits were filed in California and Washington state by lawyers from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Keller Lenkner LLC.

Also at BGR, MarketWatch, and Seattle Times.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday June 14 2019, @04:22PM (1 child)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Friday June 14 2019, @04:22PM (#855636) Journal

    but they're deemed mature enough to be accountable for letting an Amazon device into their homes and putting themselves under surveillance.

    While this is true, as I've argued before here, it's distressing that people are suddenly concerned about Amazon and Alexa, but don't realize they've likely been under surveillance for years through other devices. Lots of smartphone apps spy on users through microphones [independent.co.uk] too, and have been for a long time.

    What percentage of adults have smartphones? What percentage are smart enough to screen every app they install and restrict permissions? I just looked at my phone, and I have allowed only about 10% of the apps that requested microphone access to actually use it (i.e., the ones that need it, like the basic phone app and a secure video chat app I use). What percentage of idiots have the Facebook app installed on their phone? What percentage of them have disabled microphone access for Facebook? Why aren't we handwringing about children and adults being exploited by THAT?!?

    Yes, Alexa answers back. That seems to be the only reason people are worried about the particular instance in TFA -- they notice the possibility for exploitation. But Amazon seems to be rather forthright about what it's doing, whereas thousands of other apps people have on their phones are likely being used for surveillance silently all the time (i.e., "gross violations of privacy"). Where's the outrage and lawsuits there?

    In particular, why the hell are apps by default allowed access to so many things on phones? I want there to be at least three warning screens/windows that would go up on my phone before I gave any app access to use my microphone or my camera, and if I want to enable microphone access all the time by default, there should be an additional confirmation screen asking for that. That's what really consumer privacy protection would look like.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday June 14 2019, @04:31PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Friday June 14 2019, @04:31PM (#855638) Journal

    Note: I do know that Facebook and others have been criticized in the past over logging personal information collected from phones (though usually texts, call history, etc., not audio or video -- but I assume that's not because they can't do it, only it's harder to do it without setting off giant alarm bells because of huge data transfer). I even know lawsuits have been brought.

    I'm just saying that people download and install crap on listening devices they own every day and are giving those things permission to spy on them. Alexa is an obvious target, but I think we're kinda missing the point of how ubiquitous surveillance devices are today, and how much access we're giving them (even explicitly -- I'm not even talking about security holes and ways for OS authors to also be misusing your devices).