In one example, the FTC says a Ring employee viewed thousands of videos from at least 81 different female users. That's what the FTC has alleged in a recent complaint, for which Amazon is facing a settlement of $5.8 million.Īnd, unsurprisingly, some employees abused that access right. Not only that, but the employees-along with workers from a third-party contractor in Ukraine-could also download any of those videos and then save and share them as they liked, before July 2017.
uk has reached out to Amazon for comment.Every single Amazon Ring employee was able to access every single customer video, even when it wasn't necessary for their jobs. So, while the smart devices might make life easier, you might want to uncover your Alexa recordings and delete them. The FTC settlements are the agency's latest effort to hold Big Tech accountable for policies critics say place profits from data collection ahead of privacy.Īmazon is being investigated on multiple counts, including a $1.7 billion deal to buy popular robot vacuum Roomba creators, iRobot Corp, announced in August 2022.
'The unlawfully retained voice recordings provided Amazon with a valuable database for training the Alexa algorithm to understand children, benefiting its bottom line at the expense of children's privacy,' the FTC said. In its complaint against filed in Washington state, the FTC said it violated rules protecting children's privacy and against deceiving consumers who used Alexa.įor example, the FTC complaint says that Amazon told users it would delete voice transcripts and location information upon request, but failed to do so. The fines, totalling $30.8 million, represent a fraction of Amazon's $3.2 billion first-quarter profit.
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