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Amazon just revealed that the government’s inquiries into their user data spiked 800% last year!
In a major cause for privacy concerns, the company announced in their bi-annual transparency report that the U.S.’s and other country’s authorities demanded nearly four times the amount of data in the second half of 2020 over the first half. Yikes!
Here's everything you need to know about the alarming privacy trend:
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The new figures released this weekend reveal that the Washington based-company responded to a record number of government data calls in the last six months of last year.
The report shows that the juggernaut processed 27,664 demands for user data in that time, compared to just 3,222 in the first six months of the year. Insane!
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User data can include anything from shopping searches to voice command data from its Echo, Fire, and Ring devices. Inquiries are classified two ways: for user content and non-content. The company stated that it handed over user content data in 52 of the cases. Fascinating!
The Financial Times also reported this weekend that Amazon's Ring video doorbell device now has 2,000 law enforcement partners across the United States, aka it allows police departments across the country to access homeowners’ doorbell camera footage.
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Let us know in the comments below: what does this trend tell us about privacy in the U.S.? Are citizens more or less safe with these in use?
