Amazon 'mistakenly' sends someone's private Alexa recordings to stranger
Sales of virtual assistants, like Amazon's Alexa, are booming in many countries. However, while the assistants have probably made lives easier, they are not immune to making flaws. In one such goof-up, an Amazon user in Germany, who requested for his stored data from Amazon, received some additional data that had recordings of another user, stored by the latter's Alexa.
Amazon sent man download link containing 100MB zip file
In August, an Amazon user from Germany, under the new EU General Data Protection Regulation, requested for his data stored by the company. Few months later, Amazon sent him a download link to a 100MB file. While the zip file contained the man's data like his Amazon searches, it also contained 1,700 WAV files, which had recordings of another man, stored by his Alexa.
Man was shocked as he has never owned an Alexa
The man was extremely surprised to find the files because he has never owned an Alexa. He listened to some random files but didn't recognize any of the voices behind them. What's worse is one could easily navigate into the Alexa user's life even without the latter's knowledge. The recordings also gave out information, many of private nature, about the Alexa user's life.
Recordings gave good understanding of user's personal life, music taste
While some information like the places from where the user has used his Alexa was relatively safe, details of his personal life like his Spotify commands or inquiries made about different things, highlighted the privacy infringement issue. The recordings also gave a good understanding of his personal life, job and his taste in music. Worse, a female voice was also heard in the recordings.
Man mails Amazon, receives no reply, finds download link deleted
The man who had received the additional recordings had mailed to Amazon about the issue last month. He also asked for the Alexa user's information. Notably, Amazon didn't reply and the download link sent to him by Amazon now stands dead. However, fortunately he had saved those files locally. Later, he contacted a German publication C't, as he got concerned for the user.
C't identified the Alexa user as recordings had names, surnames
C't asked the man for the files, and could easily identify the user of the Alexa, as the recordings stored by the device had conversations where the user's first name and surname were used. C't contacted him on Twitter and he "was audibly shocked." He also wondered whether other private conversations, like those between him and his friends, also got stored.
Amazon says case was 'unfortunate mishap' because of 'human error'
Besides sending someone's private recordings to a complete stranger, Amazon made it worse by not replying to the man who had received the recordings. Amazon however contacted the Alexa user, after the magazine flagged the issue, and clarified that it was an "unfortunate mishap" and was a "one-time error", adding it occurred because of a "human error". New command: "Alexa, please don't record anymore!"
