Advocates Demand FTC Investigation of Echo Dot Kids Edition, Amazon violates COPPA in many ways, including keeping data that parents believe they deleted
Contact:
Josh Golin, CCFC: josh@commercialfreechildhood.org (link sends e-mail); (617) 896-9369
Jeff Chester, CDD: jeff@democraticmedia.org (link sends e-mail); (202) 494-7100
Advocates Demand FTC Investigation of Echo Dot Kids Edition
Amazon violates COPPA in many ways,
including keeping data that parents believe they deleted
BOSTON, MA â May 9, 2019 â Today, a coalition of 19 consumer and public health advocates led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (link is external) to investigate and sanction Amazon for infringing on childrenâs privacy through its Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition.
An investigation by CCFC and the Institute for Public Representation (IPR) at Georgetown Law revealed that Echo Dot Kids, a candy-colored version of Amazonâs home assistant with Alexa voice technology, violates the Childrenâs Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in many ways. Amazon collects sensitive personal information from kids, including their voice recordings and data gleaned from kidsâ viewing, reading, listening, and purchasing habits, and retains it indefinitely. Most shockingly, Amazon retains childrenâs data even after parents believe they have deleted it. CCFC and IPR have produced a video (link is external) demonstrating how Amazon ignores the request to delete or âforgetâ a childâs information it has remembered. The advocatesâ FTC complaint also say Amazon offers parents a maze of multiple privacy policies, which violate COPPA because they are confusing, misleading and even contradictory.
âAmazon markets Echo Dot Kids as a device to educate and entertain kids, but the real purpose is to amass a treasure trove of sensitive data that it refuses to relinquish even when directed to by parents,â said Josh Golin, CCFCâs Executive Director. âCOPPA makes clear that parents are the ones with the final say about what happens to their childrenâs data, not Jeff Bezos. The FTC must hold Amazon accountable for blatantly violating childrenâs privacy law and putting kids at risk.â
Amazon Echo Dot Kids Edition comes with a one-year subscription to FreeTime Unlimited, which connects children with entertainment like movies, music, audiobooks, and video games. The always-on listening device is often placed in the childâs bedroom, and kids are encouraged to interact with it as if Alexa was a close friend. Kids can download âskills,â similar to apps, to add functionality. In clear violation of COPPA, Amazon disavows responsibility for the data collection practices of Alexa skills for kids and tells parents to check the skill developersâ privacy policies. To make matters worse, 85% of skills for kids have no privacy policy posted.
Amazon does not verify that the person consenting to data collection is an adult, let alone the childâs parent. The advocates also say the Echo Dot has a âplaydate problemâ: a child whose parents have not consented will have their conversations recorded and sensitive information retained when visiting a friend who owns the device.
âWe spent months analyzing the Echo Dot Kids and the deviceâs myriad privacy policies and we still donât have a clear picture of what data is collected by Amazon and who has access to it,â said Angela Campbell, a CCFC Board Member and Director of IPRâs Communications and Technology Clinic at Georgetown Law, which researched and drafted the complaint. âIf privacy experts canât make heads or tails of Amazonâs privacy policy labyrinth, how can a parent meaningfully consent to the collection of their childrenâs data?â
âBy providing misleading tools that donât actually allow parents to delete their childrenâs data, Amazon has made a farce of parentsâ difficult task of protecting their childrenâs privacy,â said Lindsey Barrett, Staff Attorney and Teaching Fellow at IPR. âCOPPA requires companies to allow parents to delete their childrenâs personal information, and Amazon is breaking the lawâ not to mention breaking parentsâ trust.â
âItâs shameful that Amazon is ensnaring children and their valuable data in its race to market dominance,â said Jeff Chester of CDD. “COPPA was enacted to empower parents to have control over their childrenâs data, but at every turn Echo Dot Kids thwarts parents who want to limit what Amazon knows about their child. The FTC must hold Amazon accountable to make clear that voice-activated, always-on devices must respect childrenâs privacy.”
Organizations which signed todayâs complaint were the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Center for Digital Democracy, Berkeley Media Studies Group, Color of Change, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Defending the Early Years, Electronic Privacy Information Center, New Dream, Open MIC (Open Media and Information Companies Initiative), Parents Across America, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, Parents Television Council, Peace Educators Allied for Children Everywhere (P.E.A.C.E.), Public Citizen, Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring, Story of Stuff, TRUCE (Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Childhood Entertainment), and U.S. PIRG.
In May 2018, CCFC and CDD issued a warning (link is external), supported by experts like Drs. Sherry Turkle, Jenny Radesky, and Dipesh Navsaria, that parents should steer clear of Echo Dot Kids. The advocates cautioned that Echo Dot endangers childrenâs privacy, and by encouraging young children to spend more time with and form âfaux relationshipsâ with digital devices, it threatens their healthy development.
Added Josh Golin: âEcho Dot Kids interferes with childrenâs healthy development and relationships and threatens their privacy. Parents should resist Amazonâs efforts to indoctrinate children into a culture of surveillance, and say ânoâ to Echo Dot Kids.â
The investigation by CCFC and IPR was made possible by a generous grant from the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment (link is external).