Amazon has agreed to pay $25 million to US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to settle dispute over Alexa voice assistant.
The e-commerce giant was accused of not deleting recordings of children for years, even after request of parents.
FTC found the company in violation of Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule as it held sensitive data for years and deceived parents about its data deletion processes
Not only Alexa, the company will also pay a $5.8 million amount for its doorbell camera product Ring after the company provided its employees unrestricted access to users’ data.
FTC has said that the company did not delete Alexa data and used it for training its algorithm. The proposed order of the commission requires the e-commerce giant to delete some collected data for Alexa and Ring. It also asked Amazon to delete inactive child accounts on Alexa.
Reacting to the settlement, the company said, “ While we disagree with the FTC’s claims and deny violating the law, this settlement puts the matter behind us.”
“We work hard to protect children’s privacy, and we have built robust privacy protections into our children’s products and services,” Amazon’s statement added.
However, it is important to note that the proposed order needs to be approved by a federal court to come into effect. The company has faced scrutiny over how data is used by the e-commerce giant.
