Alexa Recorded a Couple's Private Conversation and Sent It to a Contact

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. Uneasy smart-home inhabitants have long wondered whether their obliging devices are quietly eavesdropping on their private conversations. After all, if your smart speaker is listening for its wake word, doesn't that mean it's always listening? Now people's paranoia appears to have been confirmed--and then some--with Seattle local news station KIRO 7 reporting that a Portland family's Echo recorded their private conversation and then sent it, as an audio file, to someone in their contact list. A former smart-home enthusiast, named only as Danielle, told KIRO 7 that she and her husband recently received a call from her husband's employee in Seattle, telling them to unplug their Echo immediately.