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A Spy in the home, where every appliance is

also a spy

Barry sent me an email a little while ago with a link to an article on the Washington Post website that details some
of the products you may have in your home. Some of these appliances could be spying on you at this very moment,
nearly all the products in the article are connected to Amazon.

You may not realize all the ways Amazon is watching you.

No other Big Tech company reaches deeper into domestic life. Two-thirds of Americans who shop on Amazon own
at least one of its smart gadgets, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Amazon now makes (or has
acquired) more than two dozen types of domestic devices and services, from the garage to the bathroom.

All devices generate data. But from years of reviewing technology, I’ve learned Amazon collects more data than
almost any other company. Amazon says all that personal information helps power an “ambient intelligence” to
make your home smart. It’s the Jetsons dream.

But it’s also a surveillance nightmare. Many of Amazon’s products contribute to its detailed profile of you, helping it
know you better than you know yourself.

Amazon says it doesn’t “sell” our data, but there aren’t many U.S. laws to restrict how it uses the information. Data
that seems useless today could look different tomorrow after it gets reanalyzed, stolen or handed to a government.
(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

We each have to decide how much of our lives we’re comfortable with one company tracking.

Echo speaker

Among the best-selling speakers in history, Echos
respond to the wake word “Alexa” to summon the
voice assistant to play music, answer questions, shop
and control other devices.

What it knows: Collects audio recordings through
an always-on microphone; keeps voice IDs to differ-
entiate users; detects coughs, barks, snores and other
sounds; logs music and news consumption; logs
smart-home device activity and temperature; detects presence of people though ultrasound.

Why that matters: It counts snores? Yes, if you turn that on. Alexa can hear more than you might real-
ize.

Amazon touts privacy controls like a physical microphone mute button, but when I downloaded my Alexa
voice history, I found the Echo had recorded many sensitive conversations after its microphone activated
unintentionally. (Amazon says its systems now double check whether you intended to say the wake word
and label accidental recordings.)