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Enforcement · Settlement / consent order

FTC and DOJ fine Amazon $25M for keeping kids’ Alexa voice recordings

COPPA Federal Children & minors

In May 2023, the FTC and Department of Justice announced a $25 million civil penalty against Amazon over Alexa's handling of children's data, alleging the company violated COPPA by retaining kids' voice recordings and geolocation data indefinitely, even after parents asked for it to be deleted. The complaint said Amazon told parents they could delete their children's voice data but kept the recordings and transcripts for years, used the retained data to improve the Alexa algorithm, and lacked effective processes to honor deletion requests. The order requires Amazon to delete inactive child profiles and certain retained voice and geolocation data, bars it from using such data to train its models, and requires a privacy program covering geolocation information.

Why it matters A delete button has to actually delete once you tell parents it will. If retained data keeps feeding a model after a deletion request, that gap is the violation, not a technicality.
Read the primary source
Federal Trade Commission
Open source

Published by Editorial on Sep 23, 2026. Not independently re-checked against the primary source — read it via the link above.

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Summaries are DataGrail’s wording, not statutory text; amounts and outcomes come from the linked primary source.

This summary is DataGrail's own plain-language account, written for privacy practitioners. It is not legal advice. For the authoritative text, follow the primary-source link above.