Shh, the refrigerator might overhear you


January 6, 2017 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS

Alexa, are you spying on me?

It’s a fair question in light of attempts by authorities investigating the slaying of an Arkansas man to obtain voice recordings collected by an Amazon Echo speaker and its Alexa digital assistant.

Yet the popularity and capabilities of voice-enabled products such as the Echo continue to grow. At the CES gadget show in Las Vegas, which opened Thursday, Whirlpool, Samsung and other manufacturers are unveiling new ways to use voice services to control laundry machines, refrigerators and other home systems.

Consumers are apparently willing to trade a certain amount of privacy for convenience.

So what exactly is being collected, stored or shared?

To work, the Echo is always listening. Once it hears someone utter a keyword, such as “Alexa,” it shares what it hears with Amazon’s servers to process a response. Those conversations are then stored indefinitely. Google’s Home speaker works in a similar fashion.

The Echo “has to listen to everything. That’s kind of disturbing,” said Ryan O’Leary, vice president of WhiteHat Security’s threat research center. “It doesn’t capture voice until it hears the keyword, but it could. You’re trusting the devices to not do that, but it’s entirely possible.”

Meanwhile, companies keep asking consumers to invite them into their homes.

Whirlpool is adding Alexa voice control to its smart-home appliances, including a washing machine, a stove and a refrigerator.

Someone can instruct the oven to pre-heat to 400 degrees by speaking a command to an Alexa-enabled device, such as the Echo.

Simplehuman has a voice-activated trash can, and GE Lighting has a table lamp using Alexa voice control.

For now, voice control is mainly an add-on feature rather than a core component of gadgets. It’s there for those who want to use it, but it’s not essential for the product to function.

Many manufacturers are opting to use Amazon’s Alexa service for now, though some are embracing voice systems from Google, Apple or Samsung.