Amazon accidentally sent Alexa recordings of a user in the shower to the wrong person
- Amazon accidentally sent 1,700 recordings of someone speaking to Alexa to the wrong person, according to a German magazine.
- The recordings had lots of personal information, and the magazine was easily able to find the person whose personal data was leaked.
- The episode underscores that Amazon stores audio files when you speak to Alexa.
Imagine if you had Amazon Alexa-enabled speakers all over your house. Perhaps you had one Echo in your living room and an Amazon Fire Stick connected to your TV. Maybe you talk to Alexa to set alarms, control your smart home, and play music in the shower.
Then one day, over 1,700 recordings of you speaking to Alexa are sent to a totally random person - and you don't even know about it until a magazine gets in touch.
Apparently, this actually happened, in a scary story coming out of Germany on Thursday. C't magazine in Germany is reporting that someone requested their personal data from Amazon and were shocked to discover 1,700 audio files of someone he didn't know talking to Alexa.
These files even had audio recordings of the person in the shower, according to the report.
He provided those recordings to the German magazine, which was able to get in touch with the person who owned the house full of Amazon Alexa devices. The audio files, in German, reveal a lot of personal data about the person, including where he lived, first and last names, who his partner is, and his taste in music.
It turns out, Amazon had not contacted him about the data breach, but after his story was about to become public, Amazon ended up giving him new Echo devices and a Prime membership by way of compensation, according to the report.
The story underscores that Amazon does record and store your voice when you speak to Alexa. In fact, you can check what you've said to Alexa at amazon.com/alexaprivacy and delete portions or the entirety of the stored audio files.
Amazon needs to store these recordings to improve its voice recognition systems, but people who frequently speak to their smart speaker should think twice before telling Alexa any secrets.
Amazon didn't immediately return a request for comment.