BURST
A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed in the B.C. Supreme Court against Amazon over its Alexa technology.
The lawsuit, submitted by B.C. law firm Charney Lawyers , alleges that Alexa products have collected more personal data from Canadian users than Amazon has disclosed. It also alleges that the tech giant retained the information, even when users tried to delete it, using it for business purposes such as training artificial intelligence and developing targeted advertising.
The class action was filed in B.C., on behalf of representative plaintiff, Joseph Stoney, but its aim is to be national in scope. If the class action is certified by the court, it would cover all Canadian residents who had an Amazon Alexa account between 2014 and July 19, 2023.
“Had they learned about this after signing up for Alexa, users would have discontinued their accounts,” the statement of claim asserts.
The essence of the lawsuit is the allegation that Amazon failed to obtain meaningful, informed consent for retention and use of this data. As a result, the alleged data collection and use breached both privacy and consumer protection laws in Canada.
“In its terms of service Amazon made explicit commitments to Alexa users regarding their privacy. However, rather than protecting users privacy, Amazon: (1) kept the data it took from Alexa indefinitely; (2) used that data to train its algorithms, machine learning programs and AI; and (3) failed to fully delete the data when customers asked it to.”
The suit sets out that since 2014, Amazon has been developing and selling Amazon “Echo” devices, which are controlled by its cloud-based voice assistant, Alexa. Alexa can activate intentionally or accidentally, the claim says.
Once Alexa begins streaming audio to the cloud, the audio interaction is transcribed to text, the lawsuit states. Then it is processed by an algorithm that instructs the Alexa how to respond to the user. If a request has been processed, a copy of the audio file, the transcription, the resulting instructions to Alexa, and any associated metadata is stored in an Amazon database, the claim alleges.
Prior to 2020, users had no way to delete Alexa interaction-related data, and it was stored indefinitely, says the claim. And even though Amazon introduced a deletion function in 2020, it adds, Amazon only deleted the audio file, while retaining a transcription, the instructions, and associated metadata.
“When a user chose to delete the data on one or more of their interactions with Alexa, Amazon changed what was visible to the user so that it appeared that the interactions had been completely deleted even though Amazon was actually retaining everything except the audio file,” the claim says.
Charney Lawyers also argues that some of this data may have been collected accidentally when Alexa mistook regular sounds for its “wake word.” This means conversations users never intended for the device might have been picked up, transcribed and saved.
The claim notes that in May 2023, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint against Amazon, alleging the company falsely represented that Alexa app users could delete voice recordings, transcripts and metadata. And instead, Amazon allegedly only deleted voice recordings, keeping transcripts and associated metadata.
In July 2023, Amazon agreed to pay a US$25-million fine and “effectively admitted to a number of instances of unlawful data misuse.”
The suit seeks damages, repayment of any profits Amazon gained from the use of the data, as well as repayment of the amount users paid for Alexa products and services.
For potential participants in the suit, there is a registration page set up by Charney Lawyers for people who want updates or to potentially take part in the action.
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