Virtual Assistants Such As Amazon's Echo Break US Child Privacy Law, Experts Say (theguardian.com)

Mark Harris, reporting for The Guardian: An investigation by the Guardian has found that despite Amazon marketing the Echo to families with young children, the device is likely to contravene the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), set up to regulate the collection and use of personal information from anyone younger than 13. Along with Google, Apple and others promoting voice-activated artificial intelligence systems to young children, the company could now face multimillion-dollar fines. "This is part of the initial wave of marketing to children using the internet of things," says Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy advocacy group that helped write the law. "It is exactly why the law was enacted in the first place, to protect young people from pervasive data collection."

Comments

No, they do not

[DRJlaw]

Do not take the Guardian and the Center for Digital Democracy at their word.

Read the guidance contained in the second link of the summary. Specifically, read: "Who is covered by COPPA" here.

The Rule applies to operators of commercial websites and online services directed to children under the age of 13 that collect personal information. In addition, it applies to operators of sites and online services geared toward general audiences when they have "actual knowledge" they are collecting information from children under 13.
* * *
The Rule doesn't require operators of sites or services directed to general audiences to investigate the ages of its users. However, asking for or otherwise collecting information that establishes that a visitor is under 13 triggers COPPA compliance.

This is a general audience device and service, full stop. I don't have one, so I cannot say whether they even permit the associated account to be set up by a child 13 or under, or allow multiple user accounts with accounts for children 13 or under, but if I were to purchase one, set it up with my Amazon (or Google, for their device) account, and allow everyone in the house to use the device under that account, there would be no violation of COPPA.

The targeting and "actual knowledge" requirements cannot be deemed fulfilled simply because an advertisement shows a child and the service knows that children might be using the service.

FTA:

"Khaliah Barnes, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), believes that by showing pre-teenage children using voice-activated AI devices, Amazon, Google and Apple are admitting their services are aimed at youngsters."

No, that is a general audience that happens to include children. Targeting children requires a service aspect specifically directed to children.

Notice that the one thing the article does not say is that the FTC has opened an investigation. Merely that the CDD "[is] going to recommend to the FTC that they give industry guidance of how the internet of things and COPPA should work together."

Very little to see here, then...