Amazon Alexa users have been warned that their voices are being recorded.
The assistant device – which listens and responds to users’ voice commands in order to perform an array of tasks from playing music to ordering groceries – is said to “keeps recording for a short period” after hearing a voice and reportedly sends portions of the conversation back to Amazon for research purposes.
Dr. Hannah Fry, a mathematician and expert on tech company algorithms at University College London, said: “I think there are some spaces in your home, like the bedroom and bathroom, which should remain completely private. This technology is activated by a trigger word but it keeps recording for a short period afterwards. People accept that, but we should all spend more time thinking about what it means for us.”
Dr Fry also alleged that she had sent a request to Amazon for her data which had some of her conversations that were taken from within her home.
Following the comments, an Amazon spokesperson insisted that only a “fraction” of conversations are monitored in the name of making “improvements” to the service.
The spokesperson told the Liverpool Echo: “Echo devices are designed to record audio only after the device detects your chosen wake word (Alexa, Amazon, Echo, Ziggy or Computer). Customers will always know when Alexa is sending your request to the cloud because a blue light indicator will appear on your Echo device. We manually review only a small fraction of one percent of Alexa requests to help improve Alexa.
“Access to these review tools is only granted to a limited number of employees who require them to improve the service. Our review process does not associate voice recordings with any customer-identifiable information.
“Customers can also easily opt-out of having their voice recordings included in the fraction of one percent of voice recordings that get reviewed.”