Woman Says Alexa Sent Recorded Private Conversation

A Portland, Oregon woman named Danielle said she feels like Amazon Echo invaded her family's privacy after the voice-controlled device sent audio recordings of her private conversation to one of her husband's employees, who was in the family's address book.

According to Buzzfeed News, the recipient of the recordings called her family and warned them, "unplug your Alexa devices right now," she told Seattle-based news station KIRO 7. "You're being hacked."

According to Amazon, however, Danielle, who has an Echo device in every room of her home, was not hacked — one of her Echo devices simply misinterpreted the family's conversation for a "wake word" and voice commands. The Amazon Echo has a microphone that's constantly listening for a wake word, which users can set as "Alexa," "Echo," or "Computer." When the Echo hears the wake word, a blue ring light will appear.

In an emailed statement, an Amazon spokesperson explained, “Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like 'Alexa,' and the next conversation was heard as 'send message.' Then, when Alexa said out loud, 'To whom?,' the device interpreted the background conversation as a name in the customer's contact list. Alexa then responded, '[Contact name], right?;' Alexa again interpreted the background conversation as, 'Right.'"

"As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely,” the spokesperson said.



In a statement to KIRO 7, an Amazon spokesperson wrote, "Amazon takes privacy very seriously. We investigated what happened and determined this was an extremely rare occurrence. We are taking steps to avoid this from happening in the future."

KIRO 7 reported that Amazon offered to "de-provision" Danielle's calling and messaging feature, so she could continue using the device as a smart-home hub. She said all of her home's Echo devices are unplugged, and is seeking a refund from Amazon.