FTC and DOJ Charge Amazon with Violating Children’s Privacy Law by Keeping Kids’ Alexa Voice Recordings Forever and Undermining Parents’ Deletion Requests

• “Amazon’s history of misleading parents, keeping children’s recordings indefinitely, and flouting parents’ deletion requests violated COPPA and sacrificed privacy for profits,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
• According to the complaint, 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.
• Amazon also offers Alexa-enabled devices and services targeted to children and collects personal data, including voice recordings, from children.
• Even when Amazon discovered its failures to delete geolocation data, the FTC said that Amazon repeatedly failed to fix the problems.

Proposed Order

In addition to the data deletion requirement in the proposed order, Amazon will be required to pay a $25 million civil penalty. Other provisions of the proposed order:
• The Commission vote closed on a date prior to Commissioner Christine S. Wilson’s departure from the agency.
• Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya also issued a separate statement, joined by FTC Chair Lina M. Khan and Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter.  The Department of Justice filed the complaint and the stipulated order in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
• The lead staff attorneys on this matter are Elisa Jillson, Andy Hasty, and Julia Horwitz from the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.