US feds to biometrics collectors: Knock it off. We mean it

United States regulators have taken time to, in a local figure of speech, brush businesses that deal in biometric data off the plate.

Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission feels businesses are acting like baseball batters who crowd the likely path of balls being thrown by a pitcher, assuming the pitcher will go out of their way not to hit, or bean, the batter.

“The message for businesses,” according to FTC Staff Attorney Elisa Jillson; “The FTC will hold companies accountable for how they obtain, retain, and use the consumer data that powers their algorithms.”

The FTC published an article by Jillson on the agency’s site this week, citing a pair of consumer complaints about Amazon’s alleged misuse of personal biometrics, sometimes in reportedly scary fashion.

(Just weeks ago, the regulator issued a clarification of how it sees its Section 5 unfairness standard in matters biometric. A pattern may be emerging.)

According to the FTC, the complaints are about data collected by Amazon‘s Alexa and Ring products for ongoing algorithm training. Fair enough, the agency seems to be saying, but that information does not seem to be protected the way a unique identifier should be.

In fact, Amazon “failed” in the proper care and handling of biometrics, say the complaints. The allegedly shoddy consent and management practices involved children’s data. The company allegedly has made it harder for parents to have their children’s voice recordings as guaranteed under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

And employees reviewing snippets reportedly are able to spy and surveil people in their own homes using Alexa and Ring. Businesses’ “first step” should be safeguarding this information, the article suggests.

Reading between the lines or elsewhere, however, the article says the first step for any company dealing with biometric identifiers should be understanding FTC rules. Step two should be to not get in front of a baseball rocketing over home plate.

Article Topics

Amazon  |  biometric data  |  biometric identifiers  |  biometrics  |  data collection  |  FTC