Couple Shocked After Amazon Alexa Sent Out Their Private Conversation
A Portland couple were recently shocked to find out that their Amazon Alexa was secretly recording their conversations and sending them to a random contact on their phone list.
By austind03 on May 24, 2018
While you may think your Amazon Alexa is only listening when you ask her to, think again.
According to KIRO 7, a Portland couple recently found out their device was recording their private conversations. Even creepier, it then sent out those conversations to a random person on their contact list.
Initially, the couple were big fans of the device, with every room in their house hooked up to it. It could even control their home’s heating and air, as well as their security system.
Danielle, who did not want to use her last name, said she used to make jokes about their Alexa spying on them. She explained:
“My husband and I would joke and say I’d bet these devices are listening to what we’re saying.”
However, everything changed when she got a recent call that made those jokes scarily accurate. Danielle described the shocking phone call, which came from one of her husband’s employees, saying:
“The person on the other line said, ‘unplug your Alexa devices right now. You’re being hacked.’ We unplugged all of them and he proceeded to tell us that he had received audio files of recordings from inside our house,” she said. “At first, my husband was, like, ‘no you didn’t!’ And the (recipient of the message) said ‘You sat there talking about hardwood floors.’ And we said, ‘oh gosh, you really did hear us.'”
Related: Amazon Admits Alexa Is Creepily Laughing At People And They’re Working On A Fix
The employee then passed along the actual conversation they received, officially proving this wasn’t a creepy joke. Danielle described how she felt, saying:
“I felt invaded. A total privacy invasion. Immediately I said, ‘I’m never plugging that device in again, because I can’t trust it.'”
After unplugging all her devices, Danielle repeatedly called Amazon for answers. Finally, an Alexa engineer came out to investigate. Danielle explained:
“They said ‘our engineers went through your logs, and they saw exactly what you told us, they saw exactly what you said happened, and we’re sorry.’ He apologized like 15 times in a matter of 30 minutes and he said we really appreciate you bringing this to our attention, this is something we need to fix!”
However, Danielle never learned any specifics on why her device sent her conversations, nor if it’s a widespread issue.
Head right here to learn more. Also, let us know if this will make you think twice about using an Amazon Alexa.