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Virtual assistants are quickly becoming a part of every day life. Although only 27 percent of people currently own a device like Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home, their popularity is growing, according to research from Clutch . Virtual assistants can play music, provide news updates, track information, and more, so it’s not hard to see why people are flocking to them. But, is the privacy trade-off that comes this new, burgeoning technology too steep? Companies like Amazon and Google — who currently dominate the virtual assistant market — assure users that their devices aren’t spying on them. Virtual assistants are designed to answer to a specific wake word, like “Hey, Alexa,” and are only supposed to store information if you speak to them directly. However, privacy mishaps have shown that it’s not as simple as companies want you to think. Right now, Amazon beats out Google as the most popular virtual assistant brand. Clutch reported that 66 percent of people who own a virtual assistant...
Last year, Amazon launched Echo Dot Kids — which was essentially the exact same as the company’s other devices, but with the bonus of parental controls. Now, child and privacy advocacy groups claim that Echo Dot Kids violates the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by recording and storing kids’ conversations. Organizations involved include Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC), Color of Change, Electronic Privacy Information Center, and more. In a complaint submitted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the groups wrote: “The Echo Dot Kids Edition has the capacity to collect vast amounts of sensitive, personal information from children age 13. For example, voice recordings of children are considered personal information under COPPA. The Echo Dot Kids Edition records children’s voices any time it hears the wake word, and it stores these recordings in the cloud unless or until a parent deletes them.” As its name suggests, COPPA imposes requirements to protect...
Facebook has faced a lot of heat for its poor privacy practices. In February, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began negotiating a multi-billion dollar fine with Facebook, due to Cambridge Analytica and the lack of privacy practices following it. There was a lot of hype around the FTC exploring a fine ranging from $3-$5 billion because that would set a record. But last month, Facebook’s first-quarter earnings for 2019 revealed that the company had already set aside $3 billion in anticipation of the fine. Now, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) are calling on the FTC to do more. On Monday, in a letter sent to the FTC , the two senators made their feelings clear by calling the expected settlement a “bargain.” Blumenthal and Hawley are also looking for long-term consequences for Facebook. The letter urged the FTC “to act swiftly to conclude its investigation of Facebook and to move to compel sweeping changes to end the social network’s pattern of misuse and abuse...
On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Apple and Google removed three dating apps from their stores for allowing kids as young as 12 to access them. The apps in question — Meet24, FastMeet, and Meet4U — are operated by Wildec, a Ukraine-based company. The apps collected users’ birthdates, email addresses, photographs, and real-time location data, the FTC reported. Although each app’s privacy policy claimed to block users who indicated they were under 13, none of the apps actually did so. Instead, young children were able to use the app and be contacted by other people. The FTC did send each of the apps a warning letter, stating that allowing adult users to communicate with children “poses a serious health and safety risk.” In addition, the letter noted that “several individuals have reportedly faced criminal charges for allegedly contacting or attempting to contact minors using Wildec’s apps.” Most alarmingly, the FTC’s letter noted that Wildec seemed to be...
This week, two senators proposed an update to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) that, if passed, will significantly strengthen the protection of kids online. The bill was introduced as a bipartisan effort by Sens. Ed Markey (D-WA) and Josh Hawley (R-MO). One aim of the bill is to introduce an “eraser button” so parents can remove their kids’ data from a service. If a parent uses it, a platform could not discontinue service to the user. For example, if a parent had their kids’ data removed from Facebook or TikTok, the platform couldn’t try to force the kid off. Currently, COPPA makes it so companies can’t collect personal data or location information from kids under the age of 13 without explicit parental consent. The bill strengthens this protection by extending it to kids up to the age of 15. For kids ages 13 to 15, companies will now require their consent in order to collect any data. “Big tech companies know too much about our kids, and even as parents, we know...