Alexa creepily recorded a family’s private conversations, sent them to business associate
SAN FRANCISCO — A Portland family’s private conversations were recorded by their Amazon Echo smart speaker and emailed to a phone contact of the father.
Amazon said an unforeseen combination of random words in a conversation the family didn’t realize was being overheard by Alexa triggered the action. The company is now working to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
The Oregon family contacted Amazon to investigate after a private conversation in their home was recorded by their Amazon Echo — the voice-controlled smart speaker — and the recorded audio was sent to the phone of someone in Seattle who was in the father’s contact list, they told a local TV station.
“My husband and I would joke and say I’d bet these devices are listening to what we’re saying,” Danielle, who did not want us to use her last name, told KIRO TV in Seattle.
The family’s house has multiple Echo devices that control heat, lights and security system.
At first they didn’t believe it when the colleague called to tell them he’d received recordings of their conversations. But when he told them they’d been talking about hardwood floors, they realized he wasn’t joking.
“I felt invaded,” the woman told the television station.
How it happened
Reached by USA TODAY, Amazon offered an explanation of how the highly unlikely and yet not impossible series of events played out.
First, Amazon said, the Echo woke up when someone in the home said something that sounded to it like “Alexa.”
Next, the subsequent conversation included something that, to Alexa, sounded like a “send a message” request.
At which point, Alexa said out loud, “To whom?”
Next, Alexa interpreted the background conversation as a name in the customers’ contact list.
Alexa then asked, again out loud, “(Contact name), right?”
Alexa then interpreted background conversation as confirming with, “Right.”