a family from portland, oregan has claimed that their amazon echo recorded a conversation and sent it to a random person on their contact list. they found out when the person – an employee of the husband – sent them the audio files claiming they had been hacked.

here's how amazon amazon alexa recorded a private conversation and shared it with a random contact

 

 

the events were originally reported in an interview with local TV station kiro 7. the family has since contacted amazon who explained that the ‘artificially intelligent‘ device recorded the conversation because it was activated by a word sounding like ‘alexa’. this isn’t the first time something like this has happened – remember when alexa was creeping people out with impromptu laughter?

 

 

amazon’s full explanation reads as follows: ‘echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like ‘alexa.’ then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a ‘send message’ request. 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. alexa then asked out loud, ‘[contact name], right?’ alexa then interpreted background conversation as ‘right’. as unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely.‘