Voice Assistant Privacy
Users debate whether smart speakers like Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Siri-enabled devices are always listening, continuously recording or transmitting audio data without permission, and the trustworthiness of companies' claims about only activating after wake words.
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Echo does this - only wake word phrases are sent to the internet - but it is not guaranteed by the hardware. Also your failed requests - where it recognized the wake word but not the request - are listened to by QA people. Those could easily be private conversations with an accidental wake word.
Is it collecting that data when not spoken to?
This is FUD, it doesn't do this. Only data recorded after you say "Alexa" or the like is sent up. There is also a mute button.
Cell phones aren't doing this... that you know of. If you don't trust Amazon or Google (and I don't mean to imply that you should!) then it seems like you can't trust them not to lie about when the mic is on.
It's not obvious from interacting with the device that your voice data leaves, or that there's any permanent record made of your commands. That's something you have to know ahead of time.
Unless you deactivated Siri or Ok Google your phone is definitively listening to you and people around you.The audio isn't leaving the phone but a text transcript probably is.I don't trust closed source software owned by quasi monopolies to do the right thing instead of what will maximize their profits / control over users.
Not necessarily, speech to text engines are pretty decent so it's conceivable a listening device could just send the transcript.
I think the problem is not that the device is listening. The problem is that users' recording and seacrh queries are saved to the cloud, stored indefinitely and reviewed by other people. And some users might even not realise it and think that they are just talking to a robot, not to a team of Amazon's employees.
Amazon says that my echo isn't recording me, and I just have to trust it. People have confirmed this to be true.Google says that my phone isn't recording me, and I just have to trust it. People have confirmed this to be true.I don't see a difference.
My girlfriend who is a lawyer said: "Bet that is so they don't have to reveal how often it listens or how much it listens to" and promptly unplugged it. :)