The voice assistant is eavesdropping, whether you want it to or not
Recently, we learned that Amazon employees are listening in on Alexa recordings – and, now, it’s come to light that no option exists to actually stop the voice assistant eavesdropping before the fact.
As pointed out by The Washington Post, while the company does allow you to delete your voice history with Alexa, there’s no option to actually stop it recording in the first place. And, naturally, while Alexa is only designed to listen in when the wake word is uttered, the new report points out there’s plenty of instances when this is misheard and a recording starts regardless.
Read this: Everything you need to know about Alexa
That means Alexa-enabled devices are prone to picking up all manner of conversation, whether you mean it to or not. And, if you’re not regularly deleting your history, it leaves these recordings open to analysis – unless you know how to stop sharing (some) data with Amazon.
Is this unusual, or even surprising? Well, given the nature of recent privacy discoveries involving the company, not especially. However, of course, it’s worth pointing out that not being able to turn off recording at the source has always been a thing – it’s just now come to light.
And compared to its biggest rival, Google, Amazon’s practice does differ slightly, with the former providing an option for user commands to not be saved once they’ve been processed.
Will increasing privacy concerns be enough for Amazon to alter its options for users? Well, only time will tell – while every company with a voice assistant is looking to ensure users it’s the most privacy-conscious, the reality is still quite different. Stay tuned for more.