Alexa and Ring: Amazon hits R$155 million deal for breaching privacy

A Amazon It will pay US$30.8 million, approximately R$155.4 million, in agreements with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).. Doorbell unit Ring is owed $5.8 million for privacy violations, while the Alexa lawsuit costs $25 million.

With the assistant, Amazon violated two laws, one regarding the protection of children. Alexa prevented parents from deleting data by recording information such as voice and geolocation from the gadget’s little ones.

The deal also allows Amazon to delete accounts, voice and location recordings of inactive children. Since children’s patterns are different from adults and can be used in Alexa training, the company cannot use this information to train algorithms either.

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The electronics retail giant has also been sued by a US commission over issues with the Ring doorbell, which was purchased for $1 billion in 2018. The agreement obliges the department to delete videos and data recorded by equipment showing people’s faces.

This collection of information was known as “face embeds” and was aggregated data collected and provided to third parties prior to its acquisition by Amazon. The company will still have to delete anything from the videos recorded with the doorbell.

In a complaint made by another employee, attention was drawn to the following: an employee viewed videos from more than 80 cameras located in private areas, bedrooms, bathrooms and even spy cameras.. The complaint noted that the male employee watched “pretty girl” videos for at least an hour a day.

After the incident, Ring restricted access to customer images that agents had to approve in order to serve. Amazon’s two deals with the FTC regarding both Alexa and Ring still need to be approved by a court to go into effect..