Former Amazon executive admits turning off Alexa for ‘private moments’
A former senior Amazon executive has admitted to turning off his Alexa whenever he wants some privacy due to concerns the company was listening in on his conversations.
Robert Frederick, who served as senior manager of Amazon Web Services, told BBC Panorama: “I don’t want certain conversations to be heard by humans. Conversations that I know for a fact are not things that should be shared then I turn off those particular listening devices.”
Amazon was last year forced to admit that it hired thousands of staff members to eavesdrop on and transcribe conversations recorded by the firm’s voice assistant Alexa.
The revelations sparked concerns about customer privacy, with some employees admitting to sharing amusing clips between themselves.
Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, told the BBC that staff listened to less than one per cent of conversations, which were anonymised.
He said the company now offers users the chance to opt out, adding: “We’re trying to make it easier for you to delete those recordings but the system does get better for you personally if you don’t do that.”
However, Frederick’s comments will reignite fears about the tech giant’s access to sensitive personal data.
“Whoever owns, collects the data, if you have access to it, and rights to data, then you are king,” he said. “It’s all about the data. Everything.”
Amazon has also come under scrutiny over its $1bn (£768m) takeover of US video doorbell maker Ring. It has since donated doorbells to police forces across the UK and the US.
Amazon investor Roger McNamee told the programme: “It’s a simple reality of humanity that we all need private spaces where we are not observed, where we can be at peace, where we can be our true selves without fear of being exposed or being exploited.”
However, Amazon executive Limp insisted the products were not marketed as surveillance devices but as a means to make customers’ lives safer.
Security chiefs have also flagged concerns about Ring’s neighbourhood watch scheme in the US, which uses an app to enable residents with the video doorbells to share their footage with each other.
Tony Porter, the government’s surveillance camera commissioner for England and Wales, told the BBC the app was a “state form of surveillance” and warned against its introduction in the UK.
An Amazon spokesperson said: “It is surprising that someone who left Amazon 14 years ago is being quoted about a technology that was developed a decade after he left. His quotes do not accurately portray how Alexa works.
“We take privacy very seriously at Amazon and designing Alexa was no different. Echo devices are designed to detect only your chosen wake word. No audio is stored or sent to the cloud unless the device detects the wake word. Customers can review and delete voice recordings at any time in the Alexa App, as well as, choose to have them automatically deleted every 3 or 18 months on an ongoing basis.