First Alexa, Now Fox!
From valuable personal assistant to home and outdoor external spy…
By: Annabelle Divoy
Why open a dictionary when you can ask Alexa the height of Mount Everest? Why painfully reach for your timer on the kitchen shelf when Alexa can tell you when to turn off the oven? Why even bother tell jokes to your children when Alexa can do it for you? This is only a very small – and seductive – preview of all the tasks that Alexa, the voice-controlled personal assistant created by Amazon Echo, is able to perform[1]. Launched for sales in November 2014, Alexa has been welcomed in many homes, for the reasonable price of $199 (even $99 if you are an Amazon Prime member) and has definitely stolen Siri[2]’s thunder.
Although Amazon does not communicate its sales estimates, its artificially intelligent personal assistant seems well-acclaimed by consumers, against all the threats it implies for their privacy. Indeed, in order to hear and execute the commands that consumers direct to “her” by calling “her” name, Alexa is constantly recording everything that happens in the home. If this very well-achieved gadget will certainly help you in many of your daily tasks and chores, entertain you and stimulate your knowledge, it will also seriously invade your most private moments. Alexa will hear you narrating your full day of work to your husband, listen to your telephone call with your best friend Carrie, be the best new companion of your children, learn that you prefer pop music to jazz, know that you added chocolate and wine to your shopping list and, even, that you let your vegetables burn for the third time this week.
Alexa may thus quickly shift from valuable personal assistant to home-robot intruder spy[3]. The level and amount of personal data that it is able to collect, analyze, use and/or disclose is so high that it becomes worrisome. And these privacy concerns grow considerably bigger when you consider the risk of Alexa’s gigantic range of data not only being used by Amazon and its commercial partners, but also potentially pirated by outsiders. Anxiety does not vanish at the view of Amazon’s Echo Terms of Use, as “Alexa” does not even have its own privacy policy, only referring to Amazon General Privacy Policy[4].
Yet, only a few seem truly concerned about Alexa’s dangers. For now, most consumers only focus on the attractive functions of this high-tech gadget and are filled with excitement as “Pringles-can-sized Alexa” will soon have a shorter and portable sibling[5]. As related by the Wall Street Journal in January 2016, Amazon recently announced the upcoming launch of “Fox”, a voice-controlled personal assistant, using Amazon Echo’s technology, but fitting in the palm of your hand and not requiring a power cord to function, allowing little Fox to be used outdoor and not be placed under house arrest like tall Alexa.
Amazon’s business strategy and technological innovation certainly deserve applause and give serious competition to others in the field. But when trading Alexa for Fox, or, even more so, combining both, and giving company to our already indiscrete iPhones or Androids and computers, there might be very little room left for our, yet so valuable, privacy.
[1] « Introducing Amazon Echo », Amazon’s official video, November 6, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkOCeAtKHIc
[2] Siri (Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) is Apple’s intelligent personal assistant.
[3] “Goodbye Privacy, Hello Alexa: Amazon Echo, the Home Robot who hears it all”, The Guardian, November 21st 2015,
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/21/amazon-echo-alexa-home-robot-privacy-cloud
[4] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201625490, linking to https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=468496
[5] http://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-release-portable-version-of-echo-speaker-in-coming-weeks-1452532671