Amazon Pays $30 Million for Alexa & Doorbell Camera Privacy Breach

Amazon.com and one of its subsidiaries reached separate multimillion-dollar settlements with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday over violations of children’s privacy using its Alexa voice assistant and its Ring camera in a doorbell.

Amazon has agreed to pay $25 million to settle allegations that it violated children’s privacy by failing to delete Alexa recordings at parents’ request and keeping them longer than necessary, according to a filing in federal court in Seattle.

“While we disagree with the FTC’s allegations against both Alexa and Ring and deny any violation of the law, these settlements put those matters behind us,” Amazon.com said in a statement.

It also promised to make some changes to its policies.

Ring will pay $5.8 million for mishandling customer videos, according to a separate lawsuit filed in federal court in the District of Columbia.

In its complaint filed in Washington state against Amazon.com, the FTC said it violated rules protecting children’s privacy and defrauding consumers by using Alexa. For example, the FTC’s complaint says Amazon told users it would delete audio transcripts and location data upon request, but then failed to do so.

The FTC also said Ring gave employees unrestricted access to customers’ sensitive video data “As a result of this dangerously broad access and lax attitude toward privacy and security, employees and third-party contractors have been able to view, download, and transfer customers’ sensitive video data for their own purposes.”

As part of the FTC’s 20-year agreement with Ring, Ring is required to disclose to customers how much the company and its contractors have access to their information.

In February 2019, Ring changed its policies so that most Ring employees or contractors can only view a customer’s video with that person’s consent.