9th January 2023
ALEXA – Safeguarding Concerns
Marilyn Hawes of Freedom From Abuse Has Concerns Regarding This Device
Freedom From Abuse has recently been made aware children have been groomed on Alexa. This document is raising a few issues of which you may not be aware.
We have also been told of house burglaries where discussions about a forthcoming holiday have been heard ,and on return the home has been ransacked
1. It's Always Listening
One of the most common knocks against the Echo is that it's "always listening." While this is true, most people don't understand what exactly Alexa is listening for.
Unless you have the Mute toggle enabled, your Echo is always listening for the wake word, Alexa. Your device locally processes the audio it hears and deletes the running buffer of audio a few seconds after it picks it up.
So Amazon can't hear everything you're saying -- that information never leaves your device. If it did, Amazon would be completely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of audio from every Echo.
However, once the Echo hears Alexa, it sends your following command to Amazon's servers, processes it, and then your Echo plays the answer.
We don't want to overblow the risks of "always listening," but we can't pretend there aren't any, either. Companies are infamous for doing something shady and then apologizing later when they're caught. Who's to say Amazon doesn't upload a few extra seconds of audio before Alexa to see what you were talking about before your command? It would be easy to do.
2. New Echo Devices Have a Camera
As if having an always-on microphone wasn't enough, how about adding a camera too? Even if you're comfortable with the potential privacy invasions of a microphone, a camera is on an entirely different level.
The Echo Look, one of Amazon's newest devices, has a camera designed to take regular pictures of you and help you get fashion advice. While its intended use might be great, are you comfortable having a camera in your living room that could capture pictures of your children and store them on Amazon's servers? How would you feel if the bedroom camera went off and captured your spouse in their underwear?
While the Look is solely for fashion now, a software update could add more functionality to help Amazon identify even more data about you.
Algorithms could analyse a picture and notice that you're almost out of paper towels in your kitchen, then recommend you buy some on Amazon. Or what if the camera started to identify changes in you over time, like weight gain/loss or changes in skin condition? That's a lot of data you're willingly handing over.
In 2012, Target was able to identify that a young woman was pregnant and sent her coupons for baby-related items in the mail. It did so by tracking her purchasing habits -- her father didn't even know she was pregnant. This happened more than five years ago, and Target didn't have voice data or photos to help deduce the change.
Imagine what they mean for purchase habit-tracking now. It's a whole new world.
3. The Creepy Drop-In Feature
The Look isn't the only camera-equipped Echo device. Amazon's Echo Show and the smaller Echo Spot both have screens and cameras. These allow you to do all sorts of tasks that the standard Echo devices can't do, including video chats. They also include a feature called Drop-In that's a privacy invasion waiting to happen.
Basically, Drop-In allows you to video call a trusted friend without them confirming the call. Normally, when you initiate a call, the other party must accept. But if you enable Drop-In for a certain user, calling them will allow you to start seeing video from their Echo after a few seconds of a "frosted glass" view.
Amazon says this feature is designed for parents checking in on their babies or to make chatting with elderly parents simple. But enabling this, even with a family member you trust, can still be a privacy concern.
What happens if there's a guest at your friend's house and he decides to start a live-video feed into your home? Or what if you don't realize someone is Drop-In calling when you're not decent?
Like most features of technology, this one adds convenience in exchange for less privacy/security.
4. Your Discussions Are Recorded
We discussed Alexa's listening habits earlier, but there's another key factor. When you issue a command to your Echo, Amazon keeps a recording of what you said and Alexa's response tied to your account. You can actually go back and listen to these (or delete them) later.
While you can delete them anytime, obviously having a record of what you've said to your Echo could violate your privacy at some point. Anyone with your phone could read through what you've recently said and gain insight about what's troubling you or what you're interested in. And of course, it's all stored on Amazon's servers for analysis.
5. They're Susceptible to Hacking
So far, we've only discussed scenarios where the Echo is used as intended. But there's a darker side to this, too -- hacking could let malicious folks take over your smart device and use its microphone and camera for dirty purposes. Wired explained how one security researcher could turn an Echo into a wiretap just by getting his hands on it.
This isn't something a hacker could do in 30 seconds with your back turned, but it demonstrates the vulnerabilities of the Echo. Buying a secondhand Echo unit from eBay or other used marketplaces could very well net you a compromised device.
And there's no telling the kind of hacks that people could come up with in the future. As the Echo grows in popularity, it will attract more attention from people with nefarious intentions.