Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Amazon reportedly employs thousands of people
to listen to your Alexa conversations
Amazon’s Alexa, or Echo, is a smart speaker
that does what the user says by connecting to the intelligent personal
assistant service via the Internet, including music playback, setting alarms, sending
and receiving messages, playing audio books, providing information such as weather
conditions, traffic reports, and news. It can also function as a home
automation hub to control smart devices like lights and air conditioning. The device
starts listening to what the user(s) says when it hears one of the names chosen
by the user; "Alexa", "Echo", or "Computer". So,
once activated, the smart speaker sends whatever it heard to Amazon to provide
the services. If such information is only used for the service without being
listened to or analyzed by someone, you may not worry about it so much. But it
is reported that Amazon staff are listening to what the users said to improve the
functionality and services unless it is opted out. Amazon says user identities cannot be accessed by the auditors. But what if an auditor happens to listen to a conversation
of the people he or she can identify personally? Also, what if the user
identities are leaked to the auditing flow?
No system is perfect, as you know.
Enjoy reading and think twice before speaking
to your smart speaker.
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