As a Virginia lawmaker, Ibrahim Samira has studied Internet privacy issues and debated how to regulate tech firms’ collection of personal data. Still, he was stunned to learn the full details of the information Amazon has collected on him. The e-commerce giant had over 1,000 contacts by phone. It contained a record of which part of the Quran, which Samira, who grew up as a Muslim, had recited on December 17 last year. The company was aware of every search made on its platform, including another sensitive health inquiry for books on “progressive community organizing” that they believed to be private.
“Are they selling products, or are they spying on everyday people?” Samira, a Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates, asked. Samira was among the few Virginia legislators who opposed the industry-friendly, Amazon-drafted state privacy bill that had passed. at the beginning of this year. At the request of Reuters, Sameera asked Amazon to disclose the data it collected on her as a consumer. The company collects a lot of information about its US customers, and it has begun to make that data available to everyone. After trying and failing to crack down on a 2018 California measure requiring such disclosure. (US Amazon customers can obtain their data by filling out a form on Amazon.com.)
Seven Reuters reporters also obtained their Amazon files. The data reveals the company’s ability to collect strikingly intimate pictures of individual consumers. Amazon collects consumer data through its Alexa voice assistant, its e-commerce marketplace, Kindle e-reader, Audible audiobooks, its video and music platforms, home-security cameras and fitness trackers. Alexa-enabled devices make recordings inside people’s homes, and Ring security cameras capture every visitor. Such information can reveal a person’s height, weight and health; their ethnicity (via clues contained in the voice data) and political leanings; their reading and buying habits; Their whereabouts on any given day, and sometimes whom they have met.
A reporter’s dossier revealed that Amazon had collected more than 90,000 Alexa recordings of family members between December 2017 and June 2021 — an average of about 70 daily. The recording included details such as the names of the reporter’s young children and their favorite songs.
heroine Got kids asking how they can convince their parents to “play” them and getting detailed instructions from Alexa on how to convince their parents to buy them video games. be fully prepared, Alexa Refuting common parental arguments such as “too violent,” “too expensive” and “you’re not doing well enough in school,” advised the children. Provides how-to advice from more than 180,000 articles, according to Amazon’s website.
Amazon said it doesn’t own wikiHow, but Alexa sometimes responds to requests with information from websites.
Some of the recordings included conversations between family members using Alexa devices to communicate in different parts of the house. In several recordings, children were seen apologizing to their parents after being disciplined. Others picked up the kids, ages 7, 9 and 12, asking Alexa questions about words like “pansexual.” In one recording, a child asks: “Alexa, what’s a vagina?” In another: “Alexa, what’s the point of bonding?”
The reporter didn’t realize Amazon was storing the recordings before the company disclosed the tracked data on the family. Amazon says its Alexa products are designed to record as little as possible, starting with the trigger word “Alexa” and stopping when a user finishes a command. However, recordings of the reporter’s family sometimes captured long conversations. In a statement, Amazon said it has scientists and engineers working to improve the technology and avoid false triggers that the instant recording company said alerts customers when they Recordings are stored when you set up Alexa accounts.
Amazon said it collects personal data to improve products and services and customize them for individuals. Asked about Samira’s record of listening to the Quran on Amazon’s audiobook service, Amazon said such data allows customers to track where they left off from the previous session. Amazon said the only way for customers to delete this personal data is to close their account. The company said it retains certain information, such as purchase history, after the account is closed to comply with legal obligations.
Amazon said it allows customers to adjust their settings on voice assistants and other services to limit the amount of data collected. For example, Alexa users can prevent Amazon from saving their recordings or automatically delete them from time to time. And they can disconnect their contacts or calendar from their smart-speaker devices if they don’t want to use Alexa’s calling or scheduling functions. A customer can choose to check their Alexa recording, but they’ll have to navigate a series of menus and two warnings that say: “If you turn it off, voice recognition and the new features may work well for you.” can’t work.” When asked about the warnings, Amazon said that consumers who limit data collection may not be able to personalize certain features, such as music playback.
Samira, 30, got an Amazon Alexa-enabled smart speaker during last year’s holiday season. He said he had only used it for three days, returning it after realizing it was collecting recordings. “It really freaked me out,” he said. The device had already gathered all of its phone contacts, part of a feature that allows users to make calls through the device. Amazon said that Alexa users will have to allow the company access to phone contacts. Customers will need to disable access to phone contacts, not just deleting the Alexa app, in order to delete records from their Amazon account.
Sameera said she was also nervous that Amazon had detailed records of her audiobooks and Kindle reading sessions. Upon learning of hearing the Qur’an revealed in his Amazon file, he said, Samira was forced to think about the history of US police and intelligence agencies, which, after the September 11, 2001 attacks, had been involved in suspected terrorist links to Muslims. were monitoring.
“Why do they need to know this?” He asked. Sameera’s term ends in January after she lost re-election earlier this year.
Many times, law-enforcement agencies ask tech companies for customer data. Amazon disclosed that it complied with search warrants and other lawful court orders, objecting to “overbroad or otherwise unreasonable requests” that demand data held in the company’s account. The company complied at least partially with 75% of subpoenas, search warrants and other court orders seeking data on US customers. The company fully complied with 38% of those requests.
Amazon stopped disclosing how often it complied with such requests last year. Asked why, Amazon said it expanded the scope of the US report to make it global, and “streamlined” information from each country on law enforcement inquiries. The company said it is bound to comply with “lawful and binding orders,” but aims to issue the “minimum” required by law.
Amazon’s 3,500-word privacy policy, which links to more than 20 other pages related to privacy and user settings, gives the company broad latitude in how it collects data. Amazon said the policy describes the collection, use and sharing of data “in a way that is easy for consumers to understand.”
That information can be quite personal. Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, for example, precisely tracks a user’s reading habits, another reporter’s Amazon data file showed. The disclosures include records from more than 3,700 reading sessions since 2017, including timestamped logs – down to the millisecond – of books read. Amazon also tracks words highlighted or viewed, page turns and promotions viewed.
For example, it shows that a family member read “The Michelle Sisters: A Complete Romance Series” on August 8, 2020, from 4:52 pm to 7:36 pm, turning 428 pages.
Florian Schaub, a privacy researcher at the University of Michigan, said businesses aren’t always transparent about what they’re doing with users’ data. “We have to trust Amazon to do the right thing,” he said, “instead of being convinced that the data cannot be misused.”
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