As part of their research over the past month, staff members from the senators\u2019 offices said that one manufacturer, Miko, had exposed \u201cwhat appears to be all of the audio responses of the toy,\u201d in an unsecured, publicly accessible database, according to the letter sent to Miko on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
According to the senators, this allows anyone the ability to download Miko\u2019s side of thousands \u2014 if not tens of thousands \u2014 of discussions with children. Audio files often appeared to contain children\u2019s names along with details about the children\u2019s conversations with Miko. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis basic cybersecurity lapse, and the toys\u2019 frequent communications back to Miko, Inc., call into question whether your company adequately protects the privacy and security of children\u2019s and the toy\u2019s data,\u201d they wrote<\/p>\n
The exposed database, which was viewed by NBC News, appeared to contain thousands of Miko toys\u2019 daily responses to children\u2019s questions or instructions going back to December 2025. <\/p>\n
In response to a request for comment, Miko CEO and founder Sneh Vaswani wrote in a statement: \u201cThere has been no breach or leak of user data. Miko does not store children\u2019s voice recordings, and no children\u2019s voices or personal information are publicly accessible. No customer data has at any point been compromised by Miko.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have carefully reviewed the letter and will be providing a detailed response to the senators,\u201d Vaswani wrote, referring to the letter from the Senators. <\/p>\n
The staff of Sens. Blackburn and Blumenthal said they identified the exposure by using free, publicly available tools to examine the communications a Miko toy sent over a Wi-Fi network. <\/p>\n
According to the senators\u2019 offices, staff members identified the audio files through a very simple analysis of the web server that was communicating with the Miko toy. According to the offices, it was clear the audio files seemed to be the toys\u2019 responses to users. <\/p>\n
![\"Sens.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/260210-blackburn-blumenthal-mn-1220-95953e.jpg\")
Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., at the Capitol in 2024.Graeme Sloan \/ Sipa USA via AP file<\/p>\n
When viewed by NBC News, the main index page for the database contained folders labeled \u201cGOOGLE\u201d and \u201cAZURE,\u201d likely referring to the Microsoft Azure cloud computing service. These folders contained numerous subfolders labelled with different languages or dialects, like \u2018en-US\u2019 for American English or \u2018da-DK\u2019 for Danish. <\/p>\n
Audio files in each language were organized by specific dates within these sub-folders. The \u201cAZURE\u201d folder contained 19 dialects or language folders, while the \u201cGOOGLE\u201d folder contained nine dialects or language folders.<\/p>\n
In a 2024 blog post<\/a> about Miko\u2019s use of Google Cloud and its Gemini AI models, Vaswani said: \u201cEvery large tech organization has guardrails to protect the privacy of their customers, and for us, those guardrails need to be five times stricter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal is to ensure Miko Robots provide safe, reliable, and culturally appropriate interactions for children worldwide,\u201d Vaswani said at the time.<\/p>\n Miranda Bogen, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology\u2019s AI Governance Lab, said: \u201cSetting aside the very real concerns presented by kids\u2019 toys that are powered by unpredictable AI systems that too often have flimsy guardrails, failing to secure people\u2019s interactions with AI systems would reflect a cavalier disregard for both privacy and security.\u201d<\/p>\n While voice recordings of the children\u2019s portion of the conversation did not appear in the database, NBC News was able to follow several conversations based solely on the replies in the Miko database. For example, the Miko database contained several audio files added to the database within minutes of each other that all used a unique name, allowing listeners to track what the named individual was asking about, how they were feeling, or what music they wanted to listen to.<\/p>\n The audio recordings also appeared to allow outsiders to learn when an individual started using a toy and when they turned the toy off, based on the toys\u2019 greeting and farewell messages. <\/p>\n \u201cThe database of Miko recordings is unsettling,\u201d said R.J. Cross, a campaign director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group who led prior research efforts<\/a> on risks from AI toys. \u201cWhen a company can\u2019t get basic encryption right, parents have every right to ask: what else did they get wrong? It raises questions about whether this company \u2014 or any AI toy company \u2014 making a similar mistake should be trusted with children\u2019s products.\u201d<\/p>\n In December, NBC News found that several AI toys<\/a> engaged in explicit sexual conversation topics, advised users on how to locate dangerous objects at home and shared geopolitical sentiments aligned with Chinese Communist Party talking points.<\/p>\n The senators\u2019 offices informed Miko of the exposure Wednesday. By late Wednesday afternoon, the database was no longer publicly accessible.<\/p>\n The senators\u2019 letter to Miko asks, among other questions, why the company failed to protect audio responses to the children\u2019s discussions, which third-party companies Miko shares data with, how it uses data collected about users\u2019 \u201cemotional states,\u201d and how it guarantees that children\u2019s data is permanently deleted upon request by parents.<\/p>\n Blackburn and Blumenthal also sent letters to Curio<\/a> and FoloToy<\/a>, makers of other popular AI toys, requesting more information about the companies\u2019 commitments and practices to keep children\u2019s data secure. A previous version of the FoloToy Kumma<\/a> bear discussed sexual topics and provided users advice on how to light matches before the company implemented stricter guardrails.<\/p>\n Among other topics, the senators\u2019 letter to FoloToy inquires if the company has ever shared or made user data available to the Chinese government, while the letter to Curio asks what specific parental control mechanisms are built into Curio toys. <\/p>\n In a statement, a Curio spokesperson said: \u201cWe take the concerns raised by policymakers very seriously. We are actively engaging with Senators Blackburn and Blumenthal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe recognize that applying AI in experiences designed for children carries a heightened responsibility, which is why our toys are built around parental permission, transparency, and control,\u201d according to the statement. \u201cCurio remains committed to constructive dialogue and to fully complying with all applicable laws and regulatory requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n Folotoy did not reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A company that makes toys powered by artificial intelligence exposed snippets of thousands of conversations its toys had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-471975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"FoloToy's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/251208-ai-toys-kumma-3X2-mn-1907-4e8990.jpg\")
FoloToy’s Kumma bear.NBC News<\/p>\n