Amazon has disabled two key privacy features in its Alexa smart speakers, in a push to introduce artificial intelligence-powered “agentic capabilities” and turn a profit from the popular devices.
Amazon has disabled two key privacy features in its Alexa smart speakers, in a push to introduce artificial intelligence-powered “agentic capabilities” and turn a profit from the popular devices.
But if it’s listening for “Alexa” and that listening happens in Amazon’s cloud server, they could record everything that is happening at all times with very little extra work.
That’s always been the case, and it still a potential security issue. Remember when the NSA was tapping webcams without even turning the light on. Anything plugged in with a speaker or camera like your TV, your remote, your computer, etc. is potentially vulnerable.
Of course, and for all we know they’re already recording everything Alexa hears, so there doesn’t seem to be any reason to fuss over this announcement.
Trigger word analysis happens locally. It’s when that’s triggered that audio gets sent to cloud