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Amazon Won't Say If It Hands Your Echo Data To the Government (zdnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the still-waiting dept.

Zack Whittaker reports via ZDNet of how Amazon still won't say whether or not it hands your Echo data to the government -- three years after the Echo was first released. From the report: Amazon has a transparency problem. Three years ago, the retail giant became the last major tech company to reveal how many subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders it received for customer data in a half-year period. While every other tech giant had regularly published its government request figures for years, spurred on by accusations of participation in government surveillance, Amazon had been largely forgotten. Eventually, people noticed and Amazon acquiesced. Since then, Amazon's business has expanded. By its quarterly revenue, it's no longer a retail company -- it's a cloud giant and a device maker. The company's flagship Echo, an "always listening" speaker, collects vast amounts of customer data that's openly up for grabs by the government. But Amazon's bi-annual transparency figures don't want you to know that. In fact, Amazon has been downright deceptive in how it presents the data, obfuscating the figures in its short, but contextless, twice-yearly reports. Not only does Amazon offer the barest minimum of information possible, the company has -- and continues -- to deliberately mislead its customers by actively refusing to clarify how many customers, and which customers, are affected by the data demands it receives.

2 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I can answer that question by reboot246 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder if the Echo product page should say:
    Sold by the NSA, Fulfilled by Amazon

  2. Re:I can answer that question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Correct. Under the provisions of the PATRIOT Act the private corporation does not have a choice. All the government has to do is assert national security concerns.

    Anyone here remember Lavabit?

    Aside from that, anyone remember Quest? The one telco that refused to play patriotic 9/11-ball with the government and just hand everything over. What happened to them?

    For this and many other reasons you simply cannot trust any U.S. based company in this regard.