Do you know Amazon knows close details about us?

As a Virginia lawmaker, Ibraheem Samirah has studied internet privacy issues and debated how to regulate tech firms' collection of personal data. Still, he was stunned to learn the full details of the information Amazon.com Inc has collected on him.

The company gathers a vast array of information on its U.S. customers, and it started making that data available to all upon request early last year, after trying and failing to defeat a 2018 California measure requiring such disclosures. (U.S. Amazon customers can obtain their data by filling out a form on Amazon.com.)

Seven Reuters reporters also obtained their Amazon files. The data reveals the company's ability to amass strikingly intimate portraits of individual consumers.

Amazon collects data on consumers through its Alexa voice assistant, its e-commerce marketplace, Kindle e-readers, Audible audiobooks, its video and music platforms, home-security cameras and fitness trackers. Alexa-enabled devices make recordings inside people's homes, and Ring security cameras capture every visitor.

Such information can reveal a person's height, weight and health; their ethnicity (via clues contained in voice data) and political leanings; their reading and buying habits; their whereabouts on any given day, and sometimes whom they have met.

Amazon captured the children asking how they could convince their parents to let them "play," and getting detailed instructions from Alexa on how to convince their parents to buy them video games. Be fully prepared, Alexa advised the kids, to refute common parent arguments such as "too violent," "too expensive" and "you're not doing well enough in school." The information came from a third-party program used by Alexa called "wikiHow" that provides how-to advice from more than 180,000 articles, according to Amazon's website.

Some recordings involved conversations between family members using Alexa devices to communicate across different parts of the house. Several recordings captured children apologizing to their parents after being disciplined. Others picked up the children, ages 7, 9 and 12, asking Alexa questions about terms like "pansexual."

In a statement, Amazon said it has scientists and engineers working to improve the technology and avoid false triggers that prompt recording. The company said it alerts customers that recordings are stored when they set up Alexa accounts.

Amazon said it allows customers to adjust their settings on voice assistants and other services to limit the amount of data collected. Alexa users, for instance, can stop Amazon from saving their recordings or have them automatically deleted periodically. And they can disconnect their contacts or calendars from their smart-speaker devices if they don't want to use Alexa's calling or scheduling functions.

A customer can opt out of having their Alexa recordings examined, but they must navigate a series of menus and two warnings that say: "If you turn this off, voice recognition and new features may not work well for you." Asked about the warnings, Amazon said consumers who limit data collection may not be able to personalize some features, such as music playback.

Amazon's 3,500-word privacy policy, which links to more than 20 other pages related to privacy and user settings, gives the company wide latitude to collect data. Amazon said the policy describes its collection, use and sharing of data "in a way that is easy for consumers to understand."