SEATTLE -- A lawsuit filed Tuesday in Seattle alleges Amazon is recording children who use its Alexa devices without their consent, in violation of laws governing recordings in at least eight states.
"Alexa routinely records and voiceprints millions of children without their consent or the consent of their parents," according to a complaint filed Tuesday on behalf of a 10-year-old Massachusetts girl in federal court in Seattle.
The complaint, which seeks class-action status, describes Amazon's practice of saving "a permanent recording of the user's voice" and contrasts that practice with other makers of voice-controlled computing devices that delete recordings after storing them for a short time or not at all.
The complaint notes that Alexa devices record and transmit any speech captured after a "wake word" activates the device, regardless of the speaker and whether that person purchased the device or installed the associated app.
It says the Alexa system is capable of identifying individual speakers based on their voice and Amazon could choose to inform users who had not previously consented that they were being recorded and ask for consent. It could also deactivate permanent recording for users who had not consented.
It alleges Amazon's failure to obtain consent violates laws of Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington.
The proposed class includes only minors in those states "who have used Alexa in their home and have therefore been recorded by Amazon, without consent."
Aside from "the unique privacy interest" involved in recording someone's voice, the lawsuit says, "it takes no great leap of imagination to be concerned that Amazon is developing voiceprints for millions of children that could allow the company (and potentially governments) to track a child's use of Alexa-enabled devices in multiple locations and match those uses with a vast level of detail about the child's life, ranging from private questions they have asked Alexa to the products they have used in their home."
The suit asks a judge to certify the class action and rule that Amazon violated state laws, require it to delete all recordings of class members and prevent further recording without prior consent.
Business on 06/13/2019