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'I felt invaded': Personal home assistant 'records woman's private conversation then sends it to friend'

Amazon’s ubiquitous Echo devices hit headlines this year for emitting “evil” and “witch-like” laughs and refusing the obey their owners.

But a rogue Echo has just done something even more alarming – it secretly recorded a woman’s conversation and sent it to one of her friends.

The woman, named only as Danielle, told Portland radio station KIRO 7, that she received a call from a friend warning her she had been “hacked”.

The device had recorded and transmitted a whole private conversation – thankfully, just one about hardwood floors.

Danielle said: ‘’We unplugged all of them and he proceeded to tell us that he had received audio files of recordings from inside our house.”

“I felt invaded. Immediately I said, ‘I’m never plugging that device in again, because I can’t trust it’.”

Alexa spying fears as Echo “records woman’s private conversation then sends it to friend”. Source: Getty Images
Alexa spying fears as Echo “records woman’s private conversation then sends it to friend”. Source: Getty Images

Amazon said that the device appeared to have switched on by accident and transmitted a voice message, saying it was a “rare occurrence”.

“Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like ‘Alexa’. Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a ‘send message’ request,” a spokesman said.

“At which point, Alexa said out loud ‘To whom?’

“At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customers contact list.”