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Amazon Explains Why Alexa Recorded And Emailed A Private Conversation (mercurynews.com)

Amazon has issued the following statement about why their Alexa device recorded a woman's private conversation and then emailed it to one of her friends: Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like "Alexa." Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a "send message" request. At which point, Alexa said out loud "To whom?" At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customers contact list. Alexa then asked out loud, "[contact name], right?" Alexa then interpreted background conversation as "right." As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely.
This apparently didn't satisfy the woman whose conversation was recorded, according to the Mercury News:
Now her family has unplugged all the devices, and although Amazon offered to "de-provision" the devices of their communications features so they could keep using them to control their home, Danielle and her family reportedly want a refund instead.

When reached Friday, an Amazon spokeswoman would not comment about whether the company will issue a refund.

Other smart home speakers carry similar privacy risks. Last year, for example, Google had to release a patch for its Home Mini speakers after some of them were found to be recording everything.

1 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sigh. by apoc.famine · · Score: 0, Troll

    I've heard what triggers Alexa to wake up because I can listen to the interaction using the app.

    And you know this is all that amazon listens to how?

    If you're never going to own one then why do you think you can tell others how it should work?

    Because dumbasses like you think that you know what triggers the spyware, and the rest of us understand that you're eating the shit sandwich they serve you.

    Look dude, you're claiming knowledge that you just don't have. You don't know what it records, you don't know what triggers it, and you don't know that what it gives you is the truth. Where do you get off suggesting that you know the truth and the rest of us running the fuck away from this spyware are actually less knowledgeable?

    --
    Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor