“Alexa, how much do you know about me?”

The article was initially published in responsiblesciencetechnology

By Despoina Livieratou*

The story behind smart home devices.

Smart homes are not a new concept but were envisioned by Nikola Tesla with the invention of remote controls in 1898¹. He centralized the control of all the functions of a device in one, from where he could direct them all together. In the early 1900s, the Industrial Revolution paved the way for the invention of the first home appliances. In 1901 the first vacuum cleaner was introduced followed by an upgraded version in 1907. The next two decades saw washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, toasters, electric irons and dishwashers. Of course, these devices were not ”smart”, but their introduction brought decisive changes in the daily lives of people in the 20th century. Inventors in the 1930s turned their attention to home automation technologies, but the idea did not materialize until 1966, when Echo IV, an intelligent automation system, was developed. This device allowed consumers to create shopping lists, control the household central heating and turn home appliances on or off. A little later, in 1969, the kitchen computer was built that could create and tore recipes, but this device never became a commercial success due to its high price. The emergence of new technologies sparked an increase in the popularity of smart home devices². Such devices were gradually incorporated into households. Smart homes have become affordable choices, making them sustainable for many consumers. Home networking, home technologies and various other gadgets have started appearing in store shelves and now smart home automation is trending on the market.

Alexa; a friend who is spying (?)

After a busy day, who wouldn’t desire a faithful creature to welcome him home? Since its debut in November 2014, the so-called Alexa, a voice recognition device that is a smart personal assistant to handle various tasks, has managed to defy the malicious accusations against it. It thus proved that this is not just an object. On the contrary, it is an ideal roommate, without human flaws and always available to confide your secrets and worries. It can accompany you by telling you jokes or even the news while you relax or doing any housework.

The question, which arises here is “would you let a stranger eavesdrop in your home and keep the recordings?” For most of us the answer would be “definitely no!”. However, many smart-speaker owners do not realize that you won’t always know what happens with those recordings, as Alexa speaker is always listening. Even if it has been designed to listen only when someone calls ”Alexa”, sometimes it doesn’t follow these rules. Regardless of being awake or not, these devices are constantly listening, although not always transmitting lurks the risk of privacy.

However, the risks exist not only to our relationship with Alexa. Most significant concerns are starting to emerge in the way Alexa devices interact with other services – risking a dystopian spiral surveillance and control³. The Echo turns Amazon into an extra gateway through which every web interaction must go, gathering data on everything it can hear from them. Alexa knows what you are looking for, listening to or sending your messages. This brings together the worst aspects of smartphones and smart homes. It is not just a personal device, but it has been integrated into the home environment, always waiting to be heard. Sometimes, it happens and opens only by playing music or announcing the news of the day. Also, some Echo devices have cameras and if face recognition capabilities are included, we could enter a world of intrusive surveillance in our most private spaces, even watching as we move between locations. Therefore, this gives Amazon a huge amount of control over your data about on third-party devices, even when you are not using Alexa for their operation. It is claimed that it must be connected to all your personal devices in order to be compatible and allow a wonderful smart home experience. However, this actually happens in order to record in history as many events as possible and to have access to them. Hence, it has learned about your home, but you cannot prevent Amazon from continuing to collect it.

Why is this happening?

Technology companies want to keep information from our homes, and this is because many times they continue to do so as no-one stops them. A record of our data is more useful to them than to us. Ask companies “why”, and the answer usually includes AI (Artificial Intelligence). “Any data stored is used to improve Siri,” Apple said. “Alexa is always getting smarter, which is only possible by training it with voice recordings to better understand requests, provide more accurate answers and personalize the customer experience”⁴, said Beatrice Geoffrin, Alexa’s director of privacy. Another significant reason that big companies need to engage the public and promote these chatbots, is advertising. By recording our voices, they try to invade to our lives listening to any desire, to buy a product, is revealed. So, we are “thrown” out of nowhere ads and products that would not appear in any other case and ”coincidentally” we have talked about something related to them. For instance, we have probably mentioned about how cold we have been in the last week or the need for a vegetable cutting accessory, and then, some products linked to these needs or wishes will appear out of the blue.

To sum up, we all want to take advantage of the benefits that such devices can offer, such as a timer, play music only by our voice commanding, keeping us company when the occasion requires it or even saving energy when we do not need the lights, thanks to compatible switches. But that should mean that we also open our homes to technology industries as a lucrative source of data to train their algorithms and perhaps neutralize our lives. This data must belong to us alone. We have to be aware what the cost is. Let’s not forget that there are some possible ways, if not to prevent, but certainly to limit access to our privacy. The easiest way to ensure that no one is listening through your smart assistant’s microphone is to mute the device. Amazon Echo has a mute button on top. Moreover, when Alexa captures your voice, they store those recordings indefinitely, but they do provide a way to delete them if you want. To delete your Alexa history, you can simply use the Alexa app on the mobile phone settings. The sure thing, though, is not to forget to be and interact like a rational human being and thus to use wisely and prudently such technological-but often useful-devices. We should be more aware yet skeptical to what we allow to interfere in our daily lives.

¹ https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/repurposed-inventions/history-of-remote-control.htm

² https://blog.bccresearch.com/the-evolution-of-smart-home-technology

³ https://theconversation.com/amazon-echos-privacy-issues-go-way-beyond-voice-recordings-130016

⁴ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/06/alexa-has-been-eavesdropping-you-this-whole-time/

*Despoina has studied Classical Philology in National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and she is a Master’s student in Philosophy at UCL