Irish Examiner view: 'Alexa, when is it smarter to turn off the smart speakers altogether?'
Many homes are swathed in smart technology and we may have to check how many of our devices are listening in and passing our information on for commercial gain. Picture: iStock
At one level, this is harmless, knockabout stuff. Sometimes it is useful to have an algorithmic recommendation. No one forces the consumer to buy. But, as asked last week:
The increasing fashion for working from home, for those who can do so — which is by no means all of the population, whatever enthusiastic advocates would have you believe — is going to require a new set of protocols and behaviours, so it is unsurprising that a fresh IT policy for civil servants, who are among the keenest adopters of hybrid working, suggests that meetings not take place in the same room as Alexa or Google Home devices.
British civil servants and Irish lawyers have already been advised not to participate in discussions unless smart speakers have been turned off.
Now a report in the says that staff at the Oireachtas have been advised to “avoid having confidential work conversations near digital home assistants or smart speakers [e.g., Alexa or Google Home], as these may record what you say and share it with their parent company”.
Workers are also told to avoid keeping official files on their personal laptops or phones, and to ensure family members don’t have access to the device they use for work.
None of that is rocket science, but it is worth repeating.
An Amazon spokesman says its devices are designed to only detect chosen words that activate them and that they do not record or store any audio unless it is a command from the user.
Google says the company puts users “in control over the experience and tries to keep it simple”. If you are in any doubt, just look your speaker in the mesh and say: “Hey Alexa, can you keep a secret?”
