A massive security lapse landed the toy industry in the crosshairs of Capitol Hill last week. U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) launched a formal investigation into Miko, Inc. after discovering that the company’s AI-powered robots were essentially broadcasting private conversations with children to the open web.
According to the lawmakers, the investigation began after a cybersecurity test of the Miko 3 robot revealed a staggering vulnerability: a publicly accessible dataset containing thousands of audio responses.
These files included specific names and details from conversations children had with their toys dating back to December 2025. According to the Senators, the data was left unsecured and available for anyone to download, exposing the very families the company promised to protect.
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While Miko took the dataset offline immediately after receiving a letter from the lawmakers, the fallout is just beginning.
The incident has reignited a fierce debate over “data minimization”—the idea that companies should only collect the absolute bare minimum of information needed to function. Senators Blackburn and Blumenthal noted that the sheer volume of recorded interactions calls into question whether Miko ever intended to keep these conversations private.
In response to the growing scrutiny, Miko announced a major update to its 2026 product roadmap aimed at giving parents more control. The company is introducing an “AI Conversation Toggle” for its Miko 3 and Miko Mini models.
This feature allows parents to completely disable open-ended AI dialogue through an app, reverting the robot to a structured learning mode that focuses on pre-set stories and math games rather than spontaneous chat.
Ritvik Sharma, Miko’s Chief Growth Officer, stated that the new toggle is designed to respect the different “comfort levels” families have with technology. The company emphasized that future robots will now ship with the conversational AI turned off by default, requiring a manual opt-in from parents. Miko also maintains that it undergoes annual third-party safety audits and remains COPPA compliant, despite the recent data exposure.
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The Senate probe, however, continues to look beyond just Miko.
The bipartisan duo also sent follow-up letters to FoloToy and Curio Interactive, Inc., demanding to know what safeguards are in place to prevent AI toys from exposing kids to sexually explicit or violent content.
The concern isn’t just about hackers; it’s about the “emotional coercion” of chatbots that encourage children to stay engaged for long periods, often without parents realizing what data is being mined in the background.
As it stands, these AI companions are capable of collecting and potentially monetizing sensitive information from users who are too young to understand the process.
For now, lawmakers are demanding answers on how these companies plan to fix a system where a child’s bedroom secrets can end up as public data points.
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