Amazon disables Echo account after hearing racial slur

An Amazon customer had his smart home account shut down after a delivery driver mistakenly heard a racist slur through the customer's doorbell. An Amazon customer had his smart home account shut down for a week after a delivery driver said he heard a racist slur through the customer's doorbell, despite nobody being at home. During this period, Jackson had been unable to use his Echo smart home applications and Alexa virtual assistant software. Baltimore-based Microsoft engineer Jackson discovered he had been locked out of his Amazon Echo account one day after a delivery driver had dropped off a package. It turned out the driver had reported 'receiving racist remarks' from his Ring doorbell, although it had actually said 'Excuse me, can I help you?' to the headphone-clad driver, according to home video footage reviewed by Jackson. Amazon failed to inform Jackson that his account had been suspended, took six days to review his complaint, did not inform him when his case was finally resolved, and did not apologise. System 🤖 Amazon Alexa Operator: Brandon Jackson Developer: Amazon Country: USA Sector: Consumer goods Purpose: Provide information, services Technology: NLP/text analysis; Natural language understanding (NLU); Speech recognition Issue: Accountability; Accuracy/reliability; Transparency

Date it happened

2023-07-01

Organisation involved

Brandon Jackson

Product, system or model

Amazon Alexa; Amazon Echo

This is a record of what was reported, not a finding that anyone broke the law. If it names your organisation and you believe it is wrong, the corrections process is free and open to everyone.