Alexa is always listening to you: Here is how
Imagine you called your friend for a ‘pour your heart out’ session. You order a pizza, top up your coke with ice and ask Alexa to play your favourite music. And both of you relax on a couch for that private conversation you wanted to have with your friend. Of course, you think that it is only the two of you who are party to that conversation. But you are wrong! Count Alexa in.
Yes, Alexa is always listening to you. But how? That is because the microphone on Alexa’s smart speaker is always active (by default, at least) and is constantly mindful of the voices at your home in order to hear its ‘wake word’. Alexa’s wake word is what you call it Alexa, Hey, Alexa or Echo.
When does Alexa listen and record?
So there is a difference between Alexa listening and Alexa recording. The microphones in Alexa’s smart speakers are always listening, but, they are only listening to receive its ‘wake word’ or get activated. That makes sense! If you can ask the device to be activated at any point of time, it would have to monitor your entire audio and stay alert.
But does it always recording too? No. Alexa starts recording your conversation when it hears the wake word. So, when you say ‘Hey, Alexa’, if the keyword ‘Alexa’ is detected, then everything that you say after that gets recorded.
What does Alexa do with recorded content?
The recorded audio is uploaded to Amazon’s cloud, where algorithms in the server analyse the speech pattern and try to detect and identify the words you are saying. Though Alexa almost responds instantly to any of your questions or instructions, it actually has to work with Amazon’s cloud to decipher your accent, speech clarity, and vocabulary. Once that is clear, it responds to your request.
Should you worry?
Yes. You should. This is because Alexa records all your conversations after it hears its wake word and uploads the recordings to the server. Now, even if you by chance happen to discuss Alexa’s capabilities or rave about your recent buy of Alexa, as soon as you say the word ‘Alexa’ you may have woken her up unintentionally. After this, if you happen to indulge in a private discussion, then all of it would be uploaded to the server. So there could be all kinds of reasons the device might accidentally activate and record situations which you’re not expecting it.
There are hundreds of people employed by Amazon to read and process the transcripts that our smart devices upload to the cloud. Thankfully, you can opt-out of having your recordings viewed through Alexa’s privacy settings, and Amazon insists that employees “do not have access to personal information about the customers”. However, there is a live microphone in these devices and with any software update that comes to the device, the settings could change.