How to protect children’s privacy

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission settled a lawsuit against Amazon over the company’s alleged failure to delete recordings of children using its Alexa voice assistant when it should have. Regulators said Amazon would pay $25 million for violating federal child privacy laws. Here’s what parents need to know about protecting their children’s privacy when it comes to using voice assistants:

Privacy settings

Once you have an Alexa-enabled device like an Amazon Echo, open the Alexa app on your smartphone or tablet and go to settings, Alexa privacy, manage your Alexa data and choose how long to save recordings.

Select “Don’t save recordings” and hit confirm. Delete past recordings in the Alexa privacy section, including your voice history and history of detected sounds.

If you have an Echo Show or other device with a camera built in, make sure the cover is over the camera at all times unless you are using the device for video calls.

Teach kids how it works

Depending on their age, you can tell them how private companies collect data from tablets, smartphones, watches and speakers — everything from their YouTube history to physical location.

Turn on parental controls

Alexa makes an Echo just for kids that comes in cute animal designs and is supposed to give only kid-friendly replies. It also lets you make profiles for everyone in your family for use across devices.

You can set up parental controls in Alexa settings by going to parents. amazon.com. There are options for daily time limits and filtering content by factors like their age.

Keep in mind that to use kids’ profiles you are giving Amazon consent to collect some data about your children. It’s required to use some of the kid-specific features on Alexa-enabled devices.