Privacy expert, Dr. Hannah Fry, is warning against allowing Alexa into the bedroom.
Fry is of the belief that you should not have an Amazon Echo anywhere near your bedrooms or bathrooms.
Earlier this year, it was alleged that Amazon may have been tapping into conversations across the world to make sure the devices were working properly.
In that short amount of time, they heard a woman singing to herself in the shower as well as someone reading out their confidential bank details.
She said:
“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 [such as ‘Alexa’] 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.”
And while Amazon has denied that it is spying on anyone using these devices, it has since been revealed that there are workers in places like Costa Rica, Romania, as well as India who have been listening to over 1,000 audio clips a day.
Dr. Fry requested the technology companies provide all the data they had collected on her and was given recordings of normal, everyday conversations that had taken place at her house.
She continued, saying:
“There are people who are very senior in the tech world who will not have so much as a smartphone in their bedroom. If a company is offering you a device with an internet-connected microphone at a low price, you have to think about that very carefully. I have both an Alexa and a Google voice-activated device and I regularly turn them both off. People really must set their own limits.”