Alexa and wiretapping

Earlier today, while at my desk typing, a gave a single — one —brief cough. In less than a minute my iPhone tinged a notification: “did you know that Alexa can remind you to drink a glass of water when you cough? Go to your Alexa app to learn more”.

Somehow I keep forgetting that Amazon has lied to us about Alexa’s wiretapping capabiity, and keep assuming that Alexa operates in a dormant mode, only awakening when “Alexa” is said specifically. Here’s how they say it operates:

Although Alexa’s voice recognition system is online all the time, it does not record and process all of the voice inputs at all times. In its default idle state, it is only listening for the word “Alexa,” which toggles its active state. Only then will Alexa record a command like “Alexa, play Spotify on shuffle.”

That’s not true, of course — it heard me cough, recognized it as a cough, not variation of the word “Alexa”, and messaged me with its suggestion for a remedy. It is listening, all the time, and reporting to someone/something on what the spyware it’s hearing. It’s not at all difficult that a spy agency like the NSA or even the new Biden version of the FBI can gain access to what’s being recorded, if it isn’t already doing so.

In which case, if they’re listening to me, they’ve probably dropped dead from boredom by now, but though I’ve enjoyed the control and access to Sirrius XM and my audible books that Alexa gives me, this incident has made me realize that I’m paying too high a price for that convenience.