Imagine your nephew is visiting you for Christmas and is busy exploring your home and all its constituents. During his exploration, he comes across your Amazon Alexa. He fidgets with it and finally finds a way to awaken the voice assistant in it. This piece of technology amazed adults at its launch, hence it is certain to have the same effect on kids as well. In the excitement to own something which will listen to our orders at all times, we fail to notice the invasion of privacy by this object on our daily lives. A home is where we unwind and remove the façade of our social lives. This is where we believe that our kids are the safest and can be by themselves. But what if you realize that there is a device listening to your kid at all times? Definitely creepy.
A few weeks back, toy manufacturer Mattel decided to launch a kid-friendly version of the same product. But it received a lot of backlash from pediatricians and psychiatrists which resulted in the abortion of the project. This was mainly because of the fact that data was being recorded even when the user did not want to. All this audio data was later uploaded on the cloud of the company. Same is the case with Amazon Alexa. This has imposed a major threat to the safety of a child who does not understand the repercussions of artificial intelligence. Instead of supplying information, these devices also collect information. How safe is your personal data with these companies is still unknown.
Amazon Alexa has come up with new parental controls to make it kid-friendly.
How efficient is the parental control by Amazon Alexa?
Amazon made sure that it kept updating the features it offered in its voice assistant to rule the market. When concerns about the privacy of user data arose often, it was time for the tech giant to look into this matter. A number of parents stated their concern about not trusting the device with their kid due to lack of privacy. In order to make sure that it doesnât affect the sale of these smart speakers, here comes the deviceâs parental control.
The tech giant has introduced a layer of parental permission before the child can get access to the Amazon Alexa. To grant permission, the parent will receive a one-time password on his phone. He has to verify himself through this password on the device. On doing so, kids can choose from a wide variety of games and other activities designed specifically for them.
