Alexa, turn off creepiness.
The nightmare scenario for Amazon eavesdropping came true for at least one customer: Private recordings from an Alexa device were shared with a customer they didn’t belong to.
Germany’s c’t magazine reported that in August, an Amazon customer asked for his own data records Amazon collected. The problem: He received about 1,700 recordings from another customer. The customer who made the request doesn’t even own an Alexa device.
Amazon blamed “human error” and said this was an isolated incident according to reporting from Reuters.
[Also read: Facebook gave some companies access to users’ personal messages]
C’t didn’t report any compromising or embarrassing details found in the bulk of leaked audio files but they contained a lot of personal information of the victims including personal travel, work schedule, and personal habits. After listening to these files, c’t correctly identified the victim and his girlfriend and made contact for their reporting.
The leak of personal information highlights a creepy and troubling reality with devices like Alexa that are constantly listening to everything in the home and the growing risk of privacy infringement as consumers bring more and more electronics into their life mixed with tech company’s growing appetite for personal data.
This isn’t the first time Amazon had a high profile problem with personal data being compromised. In May, a Portland family said their Alexa device recorded a conversation in their home and randomly sent the audio file to one of their contacts in Seattle. Records of Amazon listening devices are also starting to be sought after in criminal cases.
[Previous coverage: Two senators demand answers from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos about privacy concerns for ‘Alexa’]
