Ironically, the couple had joked that their Amazon Alexa could be listening in to their private conversations. This shortly became a reality when it was found that a conversation the couple had in their own home was recorded by Alexa. This came to light when Amazon's artificial intelligence sent the recording to someone on the couple's contact list, seemingly at random. The recipient was one of the employees of the husband, based in Seattle (some 176 miles away from the couple's home). After warning the couple, the recipient then decided to alert the media.

The main reason most people get an Amazon Echo, with its onboard AI servant Alexa, is convenience. But, after a family in Oregon found out Alexa recorded at least one private conversation and sent it to a contact in their address book, you might want to sacrifice convenience for privacy and personal security. Or, maybe you should at least keep the microphone turned off when not in use. Not very convenient, I know. Danielle (who identified herself only by her first name) and her family were going about their normal lives when her husband's employee unexpectedly called them and urged them to turn off all the Amazon devices in their home.

Amazon is encouraging us to put listening devices in every room of the house with executives from Amazon saying that Echo assistants don't listen to private conversations, they say the device will start listening to conversations only if the word Alexa was used, this is not always the case as a story from a user in Portland highlights. An Alexa user from Portland, Oregon has installed Echo and Smart bulbs in every room of their house thinking that nothing bad will happen, however when asking Amazon to investigate an issue about Alexa recording a private conversation between her and her husband that was sent to a random number in her address book without her consent. She didn't believe her friend at first, however when her he explained the conversation between her husband she finally believed them. "You sat there talking about hardwood floors." Danielle realised the colleague must have heard everything.

Amazon.com Inc. AMZN 0.44% said that one of its Echo home speakers mistakenly recorded a private conversation and sent it to a person in the owners' contact list, an incident that raises questions about the security of such voice-operated devices. Confirming a report by a local television station in Seattle, Amazon on Thursday said that the Echo device misunderstood pieces of a conversation as commands, causing it to think it was being instructed to send the message. "As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely," a spokeswoman added in a statement. The incident was first reported by KIRO 7, which aired an interview with a Portland, Ore., user identified only as Danielle. The user said that one of her husband's employees had received a recording sent from inside her house.

It's every smart home speaker owner's worst nightmare: a private message recorded and sent to a recipient without their knowledge. But that's what happened to a Portland woman, who told CBS News affiliate Kiro-TV that her Amazon Echo recorded an audio clip of her conversation and sent it to a person on her contact list. The woman, who declined to provide her last name to Kiro-TV, said she was alerted to the bug when the recipient of the message -- one of her husband's employees -- called her home to alert her that she'd been "hacked." An initial investigation by an Alexa engineer turned up no leads, according to the woman. But the engineer speculated that the Echo speaker "guessed" the command to send a message via Alexa Voice Messaging without asking for verbal confirmation.

Amazon's Alexa recently made headlines for one of the strangest consumer AI mistakes we've ever heard of: A family in Portland, Oregon claims that the company's virtual assistant recorded a conversation and sent it to a seemingly random person in the husband's contact list. Alexa didn't just make one slip-up -- it made several that, when combined, led to a pretty remarkable breach of privacy. The company's explanation, provided to news outlets yesterday, makes clear just how unlikely this whole situation was: "Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like'Alexa,'" the statement reads. "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'."

An Amazon Echo multimedia smart speaker, taken on November 28, 2016. Voice speakers such as the Amazon Echo have already shown themselves to be less than trustworthy. Only a few months ago, consumers complained about sinister laughter coming from the Amazon Alexa assistant. Meanwhile, the always listening devices have come under fire amid accusations that they could enable snooping by law enforcement. This week, public fear has ramped up a level after a US couple's conversation was recorded and sent to an acquaintance without their knowledge.

A couple in Portland, Ore., discovered that their Amazon Echo had recorded their conversation and sent it to one of their contacts. A couple in Portland, Ore., discovered that their Amazon Echo had recorded their conversation and sent it to one of their contacts. As secret recordings go, the Portland couple's conversation was pretty mundane: They were talking about hardwood floors. But their Amazon Echo was listening and recording their discussion. The device then sent the recording to someone in their contacts -- without the couple's knowledge.

It started with a chilling phone call: a voice on the other end of the line telling you to unplug your devices and that they are being listened to. Then it became something even more worrying, when you realise that it's true, and the Amazon Echo in your house has been sending your private conversations to random people. The revelation that an Amazon Echo speaker had been quietly recording its owners and then sharing those recordings have shocked and scared many people who own the useful but intimate little cylinders. Amazon has said that such an event is extremely rare – and that it is working to make it even less likely – but the fact that it can happen at all has worried many people who have let Alexa into their home. The bizarre occurrence seems to be the consequence of a relatively innocent sounding feature: a messaging tool that allows people to send voice notes to other people with Echos.

A couple in Portland, Oregon joked that their Amazon Alexa might be listening in to their private conversations. The joke came to an abrupt end when they discovered a conversation was indeed recorded by Alexa - and then sent to an apparently random person in their contact list. "Unplug your Alexa devices right now!" warned the puzzled recipient, according to ABC affiliate station KIRO7, which first reported the story. Amazon has an explanation as to what happened. But first, here's how Danielle - who didn't want to share her surname with ABC's reporter - described the rather alarming chain of events.