Over and over again, company spokespeople have promised that they only start recording if someone says the wake word: “Alexa”. She’d installed Echo devices and smart bulbs in every room in her house, accepting Amazon’s claims that they were not invading her privacy. But today she asked the company to investigate after 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. They said:“Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like ‘Alexa’. At which point, Alexa said out loud ‘To whom?’ At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customer’s contact list.

Source: The Guardian May 24, 2018 20:33 UTC