Amazon Alexa Always Listening

BATTLE FOR WORLD / BLOOMBERG | June 10, 2019:

The article highlights  that the future will be recorded on your smart speaker, as Amazon filed patent application for an always-on feature for Alexa, its voice-activated personal assistant, and this function is causing a lot of concern.

“If you’re already freaked out by the privacy implications of smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo,” says the tech website Gizmodo, “we have some bad news.” And an article in ScienceAlert was more direct: “Newly Released Amazon Patent Shows Just How Much Creepier Alexa Can Get.” You get the intended idea, as the public is slowly tricked into adapting and accepting the usage and implementation of intrusive surveillance technologies.

But the anxiety about such intention some say is much ado about nothing. That an Alexa that’s always listening will likely prove more useful than an Alexa that isn’t; and always-on devices are the future. The deceiving innocents of it all – trust us.

The concern that one worries about is, what happens to the information from the audio buffer. Amazon says Alexa currently retains recordings for a period of time, to help it learn and fulfill the user’s needs and wants. Although the feature can be partially disabled, it has caused privacy problems. Already, courts have issued subpoenas for Alexa recordings. And as Bloomberg News reported, human beings at Amazon already listen to much of what Alexa hears, in an effort to improve the device algorithm. 

END