Business

Lawmakers Raise Privacy Questions About Amazon Echo Dot For Kids

When children talk to an Amazon Echo Dot for kids, who, exactly, is listening?

Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Joe Barton posed that question in a letter sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos asking how the online retail giant protects the privacy of children who use the smart speaker.

The voice-activated device, which retails for $80, is promoted on Amazons site as a benign digital nanny: “a kid-friendly DJ, comedian and storyteller.” It comes with a years free access to a service called FreeTime Unlimited, which provides ad-free radio stations and playlists, 300 Audible books for kids, including Beauty and the Beast and Peter Pan, and games and other content from Disney and Nickelodeon.

“While these types of artificial intelligence and voice recognition technologies offer potentially new educational and entertainment opportunities, Americans privacy, particularly childrens privacy, must be paramount,” wrote Markey and Barton.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal heightened awareness of technology companies data collection practices and created public backlash. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent 10 hours testifying before Congress about how the not-bankrupt political consulting firm gained access to the personal information about 87 million users, in its efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Last month, nearly two dozen child advocacy and watchdog groups called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google for allegedly violating childrens privacy laws with its YouTube video service.

The lawmakers asked Bezos to provide details about whether Amazon records and saves childrens interactions with the device and if these conversations are converted to text and stored. They want to know if parents can review and delete these recordings, or any other information Amazon collects along the way.

Markey and Barton ask if Amazon is building a profile or “voiceprint” of each child who uses the Echo Dot Kids Edition and how long Amazon holds on to this information if a parent doesnt delete it. They want to know what third parties have access to this data, and whether its used for marketing purposes.

The legislators also ask what steps Amazon has taken to comply with the parental consent requirements of the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act.

Amazon did not respond to a request seeking comment, however its site contains a generic childrens privacy disclosure describing how it handles the personal information it collects from children under the age of 13. It acknowledges it does collect data from children — including name, birthdate, contact information, voice, photos, videos and device information. It says it uses this information to improve its products and services, including personalized recommendations or for enforcing parental controls.

The retailer provides a site to allow parents to manage this data collection — including reviewing and deleting the childs personal information, or revoking permission. These policies, Amazon notes, do not apply to third party services, like apps, that can be accessed through Amazon.

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