Credit: Alamy
Experts Warn People Not To Keep Amazon Echo Alexa In Their Bedrooms
Experts have issued a stark warning to anyone who keeps an Amazon Echo Alexa in their bedroom.
As Black Friday week lingers, and Christmas is just around the corner, shoppers are always on the hunt for another tech gadget they can add to the never-ending collection.
And while AI assistants that make life just that bit easier might feel like an obvious choice of gift, there’s a few things you might need to be aware of.
From requesting a weather update to providing recipes, the voice-activated device is a useful tool to have around the home.
However, some experts are now advising that you keep it in your living room, dining room, or kitchen – instead of the bedroom.
So, let’s find out why…
What Amazon has said
A spokesperson for Amazon said (via Mirror): “Echo devices are designed to record audio only after the device detects your chosen wake word (Alexa, Amazon, Echo, Ziggy or Computer).
“Customers will always know when Alexa is sending your request to the cloud because a blue light indicator will appear on your Echo device.”
They added: “We manually review only a small fraction of one per cent of Alexa requests to help improve Alexa. Access to these review tools is only granted to a limited number of employees who require them to improve the service.
“Our review process does not associate voice recordings with any customer-identifiable information.”
As of 2024, there were over 8.4 billion digital voice assistants in use worldwide, which is more than the global population.
A scary thought, perhaps?
And around 30% of internet users aged 16-64 worldwide use voice assistants weekly.
By the end of this year, it’s projected that 75% of households in the US will own at least one smart speaker device.
Keeping an Alexa in your bedroom
Where you place them in your house could prove very important.
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, expert on tech company algorithms, Dr. Hannah Fry, claimed that the device can record conversations.
But thankfully, there is a way you can switch the feature off.
She explained: “I think there are some spaces in your home, like the bedroom and bathroom, which should remain completely private.
“This technology is activated by a trigger word but it keeps recording for a short period afterwards. People accept that, but we should all spend more time thinking about what it means for us.”
Dr. Fry said she reached out to tech firms and asked them to provide the data they had collected on her.
She alleged she was presented with recordings of conversations taken from within her home.
She also claimed that ‘very senior’ people in the tech industry said that they won’t even take their smartphones into the bedroom.
Previously, Amazon admitted that staff had listened to customers’ conversations through Alexa, citing that the recordings were solely used to help improve the Echo device’s understanding of human speech.
How to turn the feature off
Fortunately, the company added that Alexa owners can ‘opt out’ of having their recordings used by Amazon staff, and there’s an option to turn this off in settings.
To do this, you need to open the Alexa app on your smartphone, go to settings, head to Alexa privacy, and select ‘Manage Your Alexa Data.’
Click ‘How Long to Save Recordings,’ then ‘Don’t Save Recordings’ and press confirm.
You’ll then want to scroll down to ‘Help Improve Alexa’ and switch the ‘Use of Voice Recordings’ to off.
On some devices, you may receive a message informing you that turning the setting off will mean ‘new features may not work well for you.’
But if you would rather your private recordings remain private, just turn the on button off.
There is also an option under the Alexa privacy settings menu, which will let you play back and delete specific recordings from your device.
Related Article: Mark Zuckerberg Warns Facebook Users Not To Screenshot Chats
Related Article: Huge Facebook Glitch Saw App Auto-Sending Friend Requests After You Looked At Someone’s Profile
Want more stuff like this?
Get the best viral stories straight into your inbox!
