You know your Echo is paying attention because the circular blue light turns on when it hears its name. Once it hears that, everything in the following few seconds is perceived to be a command or a request, and it’s sent up to Amazon’s cloud computers, where the correct response is triggered. Although it’s true that the device can hear everything you say within range of its far-field microphones, it is listening for its wake word before it actually starts recording anything (“Alexa” is the default, but you can change it to “Echo,” “Amazon,” or “computer”). This is and isn’t as creepy as it sounds. The fact is that your Echo, Dot, or Show is always eavesdropping. And sometimes it (as well as Amazon) behaves in ways that would justifiably make anyone worry about their privacy and security, as illustrated in a recent story in The Sun that claims Alexa may be privy to your intimate moments. Although it’s designed to listen only when called upon, sometimes it doesn’t play by its own rules. You won’t always know what happens with those recordings.Īfter all, an Alexa speaker, like the Echo or Dot, is an always-on listening device. When you invite a digital voice assistant like Amazon Alexa into your home, you’re inviting a device that records and stores things you say, which will be analyzed by a computer, and maybe by a human.
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