'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’.”
Amazon said that the device appeared to have switched on by accident and transmitted a voice message, saying it was a “rare occurrence”.
McDonald’s junior sport vouchers to continue despite ‘healthy lifestyle’ breach
Disturbing story behind shocking photo of woman bound and gagged
“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.”