Amazon.com Inc. is facing questions from U.S. lawmakers about consumer privacy regarding its popular voice-activated Echo speakers, after an incident last month when an Oregon couple\u2019s conversation was recorded by their device and sent to an acquaintance without their knowledge.<\/p>\n
U.S. Senators Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, and Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, wrote Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos requesting information about the technical design and privacy features of Echo devices and the Alexa digital assistant platform. Flake is chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, and Coons is a member.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecent reports have raised serious questions about how Amazon collects and stores voice data, and what steps are being taken to make sure this information is not shared without consumers\u2019 consent,\u201d Coons said in a statement. \u201cPeople have the right to know how their data is being used and protected.\u201d<\/p>\n
An Amazon spokesman couldn\u2019t immediately be reached for comment. Technology companies such as Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.\u2019s Google have been pressed by lawmakers about privacy protections in the wake of revelations that Facebook users\u2019 data were obtained by third parties without their knowledge.<\/p>\n
Amazon last month said the couple\u2019s Echo picked up a series of miscues during the conversation, which resulted in the chat being recorded and sent to one of their acquaintances. The Echo awoke after hearing a word in the couple\u2019s conversation that sounded like \u201cAlexa\u201d — the usual trigger to begin recording. The speaker later heard \u201csend message\u201d during the conversation, at which point the device asked, \u201cto whom?\u201d The pair continued talking and the Echo\u2019s system interpreted part of the chat to identify a name in the couple\u2019s contact list. Alexa then asked aloud if they wanted to send a message to that contact and heard \u201cright\u201d in more background conversation.<\/p>\n
The tech company responded to a television news report that the pair got a phone call from one of the husband\u2019s employees, saying \u201cunplug your Alexa devices right now. You\u2019re being hacked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regulators are trying to keep pace with technological advances that are increasingly monitoring people\u2019s daily lives, form the messages shared on social media to conversations in homes. Amazon has invested heavily in voice-activated devices like the Echo seeking to make its Alexa platform a prominent tool in smart homes, where lights can be dimmed, temperatures controlled and shades drawn by voice command.<\/p>\n
Amazon.com Inc. is facing questions from U.S. lawmakers about consumer privacy regarding its popular voice-activated Echo speakers, after an incident last month when an Oregon couple\u2019s conversation was recorded by their device and sent to an acquaintance without their knowledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":240452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,27],"tags":[723,40436,27491],"class_list":["post-264775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","category-security","tag-amazon","tag-amazon-alexa","tag-amazon-echo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264775"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}