Org Report

Advocates Called for Investigation of Amazon's Echo Dot Kids Edition, Federal Regulators Now Poised to Act

Mar 2023 🇺🇸 Fairplay

This March 2023 Fairplay statement describes federal regulators moving toward enforcement action against Amazon over its Echo Dot Kids Edition, following a 2019 complaint Fairplay and the Center for Digital Democracy had filed alleging Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) violations. The original complaint alleged Amazon indefinitely retained children's voice recordings even after parents requested deletion, provided inadequate privacy notices, and lacked sufficient parental-consent procedures. Executive director Josh Golin, quoted in the statement, welcomes the FTC and Department of Justice's apparent move toward action, framing it as the first federal enforcement matter targeting a voice-enabled device maker over children's-privacy compliance. TechKids Foundation includes this as a documented instance of advocacy against a smart-home device marketed to children, presented as a regulatory and privacy matter rather than a claim about any specific harm to an individual child.

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CITATION

Fairplay and Center for Digital Democracy. "Advocates Called for Investigation of Amazon's Echo Dot Kids Edition, Federal Regulators Now Poised to Act." Fairplay, March 31, 2023. https://fairplayforkids.org/march-31-2023-advocates-called-for-investigation-of-amazons-echo-dot-kids-edition-federal-regulators-now-poised-to-act/

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