Amazon employees eaves drop on your conversations with Alexa

Broadcast news story assignment 

Your private conversations at home may not be as private as you think.

Your commands are being recorded and transcribed.

According to an article by Matt Day of Bloomberg, an Amazon team listens to voice recordings of things users have said to their Echo speakers.

Day writes, “The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa’s understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands.”

Employees listen to roughly 1,000 audio clips per shift, most of which are mundane, according to past employees.

Day states that the employees vent to each other in an “internal chat room” (Bloomberg) and help each other to understand muffled words or listen to amusing recordings.

Other smart speakers are listening, too.

It is not just Alexa that sends your voice to employees, but most other smart speakers too. 78-million smart speakers were sold last year, and most of its owners are unaware that they are being recorded and listened to by employees.

According to Amazon’s website, no audio is recorded and transcribed unless woken up by a “wake word” or activated by pressing a button.

Some Echo users though have reported Alexa turning on by herself without any prompting.

According to CNBC, you can prevent any of your voice recordings from being listened to by following these seven steps:

• Open the Alexa app on your phone.
• Tap the menu button on the top left of the screen.
• Select “Alexa Account.”
• Choose “Alexa Privacy.”
• Select “Manage how your data improves Alexa.”
• Turn off the button next to “Help Develop New Features.”
• Turn off the button next to your name under “Use Messages to Improve Transcriptions.”

According to Aimee Picchi of CBS news, an Amazon spokesperson claims that they only use an "extremely small number" of customer recordings in order to improve the service. 

To avoid being in that “extremely small number” of users, just follow those steps before saying another word to your smart speaker.