There are many cases of the line between technology and privacy being crossed. Technology has become a major part of our everyday life and users often do not know just how much technology is surveying their everyday lives. Amazon alexa’s are notorious for invading the privacy of its users. About 11% of Americans own amazon Alexa’s and 16% of Americans have smart speakers, including Alexa’s and google assist, which is about 39 million people (Perez). Amazon crosses the line with technology and privacy because they do not tell you everything, they have had cases where they misplaced files leading to exposure of private information, and the Alexa’s are constantly recording even when not asked to.
Amazon claims to be transparent but they are not. According to Zack Whittaker, a journalist at Techcrunch, “Amazon publishes a biannual transparency report detailing the number of warrants and orders it receives across its entire business, the company doesn’t — and refuses — to break down how many requests for data it receives for Echo data”. Amazon is refusing to say how many times’ law enforcement has been asked to give up information about what the Alexa records. In addition where is the line drawn when it comes to law enforcement. They are wanting to scrub through all of your conversations with your Alexa therefore invading your private life. An article on the Slate brings up a very good point, “Digital clues from smart devices open up powerful new police powers at a time where big-data policing is already undermining privacy and security” (Ferguson). Law enforcers are just going to keep pushing to get into smart devices. The line with technology and privacy is clearly being crossed when your have a number of people listening in on what you thought would be private conversations with your Alexa.
Amazon has also had a few cases where they have sent out private user information. An article from The Washington Post discusses, “Along with receiving his own audio history captured by a home microphone, the user also gained access to 1,700 audio files from a person he did not know”(Shaban). This case took place in Germany when a man requested his alexa history, and he received both his history and another random person’s history. Amazon came back and apologized and stated, “This was an unfortunate case of human error and an isolated incident”(Shaban). Even though amazon tried to fix their mistake the invasion of privacy already happened. The amazon Alexa is actively listening therefore saving every conversation you have. You do have the control to listen and delete conversations you have had with your Alexa but amazon saved everything your Alexa saves before you delete anything.
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There are several cases about alexa’s listening in to private conversations. One case of an Alexa listening in to a private conversation happened to a couple in Portland, Oregon. According to Sam Wolfson, an article writer for the guardian, wrote, “Danielle found out her Alexa was recording when she received an alarming call from one of her husband’s colleagues saying: ‘Unplug your Alexa devices right now, you’re being hacked.’” Then according to the article, “an Alexa device recorded a private conversation between her and her husband and sent it to a random number in their address book without their permission”(Wolfson). This couple put too much trust in technology, and they saw what happened when they did. An article on Politifact states, “The devices constantly listen for a user to say a ‘wake word,’ which triggers Alexa to begin recording voice data and respond to commands. Wake words include ‘Alexa,’ ‘O.K. Google,’ and ‘Hey Siri’”(Kruzel). This means that alexas are always listening. Even if they claim to only record or listen when the “wake word” is said it still is constantly listening and you never know if it is listening or not.
In conclusion, you cannot fully trust technology. Amazon and companies similar do not tell you everything, they can misplace files that can lead to exposure of private information, and smart speakers are always listening. The line between technology and your privacy is becoming very thin. With the growing number of people getting smart speakers the awareness of boundaries being overstepped needs to become a major topic of today.
