Amazon is paying a civil penalty of $25M to settle federal charges of collecting sensitive information from children. The tech conglomerate has stored information such as precise locations and children's voice recordings, violating a children's online privacy law. The recordings have been saved for years, with no signs of deleting them. - The case was brought by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department and focused on Amazon's handling of personal information it collected from children with Alexa, the voice-activated assistant.
- Regulators, in a complaint filed in Washington, claimed Amazon was using children's information for training its algorithm to understand them, which violates the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
- The law requires online services to obtain parental consent before collecting information from a child younger than the age of 13.
- Under the settlement, Amazon would be required to delete children's voice recordings and precise location data while deleting inactive Alexa accounts belonging to children.
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