FTC charges Amazon with privacy violations over Alexa and Ring cameras

WASHINGTON: Amazon will pay more than $30 million to settle alleged privacy violations involving its voice assistant Alexa and its doorbell camera Ring.

The Federal Trade Commission voted to file charges in two separate cases Wednesday that could also force the company to delete certain data collected by its popular internet-connected devices.

Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the Alexa case, the FTC said Amazon had deceived users of the voice assistance service for years. It retained children’s recordings indefinitely unless a parent requested the information be deleted, the agency said, and even when it deleted those recordings, Amazon often kept the transcripts.