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ATLANTA (CNN) – Amazon's Echo device for children is once again subject to Washington's scrutiny over how it handles children's personal information.
On Thursday, several US senators sent a letter asking the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation to determine if Amazon's Echo Dot Edition children violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
An Amazon spokesperson told CNN Business that its Echo Dot Kids edition is COPPA compliant.
In an article published later Thursday on his blog, Amazon announced the creation of the Echo Dot Kids Edition in collaboration with the Family Online Safety Institute and "other leading groups in the industry. , and followed the industry's best practices in obtaining verifiable parental consent. " The Post also said that Amazon needed verifiable parental consent to use the device and that there were many ways for parents to delete a child's records and profile. .
COPPA aims to protect the privacy of children 12 and under. It requires companies to meet certain requirements when collecting, using or sharing their data.
Senators Edward J. Markey, Richard Blumenthal, Dick Durbin and Josh Hawley affirmed in their letter that Amazon was not complying with COPPA's parental consent requirement and did not allow parents to adequately delete information about their children.
Echo Dot Kids Edition offers a child-friendly version of the vocal assistant Alexa who plays music, answers questions, reads stories and tells jokes. It records the voice recordings of children who speak, as well as "large amounts of their personal information," alleged senators.
A group of 19 advocates for consumer rights and public health, including the Campaign for a Child Without Advertising and the Center for Digital Democracy, also asked the FTC to investigate this device on Thursday.
This is not the first time that Senator Markey expresses concern about the Echo Dot Kids Edition. In May 2018, he and his congressman, Joe Barton, sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with questions about the product. One of the issues raised was whether Amazon maintained a data profile of each child and how long their records and information were kept.
The-CNN-Wire ™ and © 2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
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