Is Big Brother watching and listening?

[t-tony]

They say that the Amazon Alexa and the like listen to there surroundings. Shirl just told me of something that happened over in Florida to her and her mate.
They had not given there email details in certain shops they visited yet within a very short length of time they were receiving emails offering discounts from the shops they went in. Spooky or just downright invasive?

Tony.

 

[Jjim]

In America they have very little Data Protection regulations.

 

[Pingu]

This is where having multiple e-mail addresses is useful.

You would know who sent you the voucher.

 

[the Nefyn cat]

These days it may well be possible for shops to have a quick look in your phone as you go by, sure I read about it a couple of years ago. Gives you a chance to take advantage of all their bargains that you might not realise you needed otherwise.

 

[Mazza]

I’ve got one of those Alexa things...and all I use it for now is to give me reminders to go and check my dinner so I dont burn anything.

The only other time it wakes up is when the Alexa advert comes on the tele, and it hears its name .....always makes me jump !!!

I bet when I’m out, that Alexa chats to Siri

 

[Redline]

The answer is yes. They have the computing power to access, analyse and link unstructured data from many sources. There is a massive market for email details which in many countries is not controlled any way.
My eldest runs his own email server. Each time he is asked for and email address he gives them a new one. When he starts getting emails to that address he knows who the culprit is.
Does Alexa listen to and record everything you say? While it could it is unlikely. That said, there are circumstances where it could. State security services have massive capability to listen to telephone devices whether or not they are in use. Conversations can be and have for a long time been eavesdropped very easily. They can probably now listen to TVs and tv remote controller devices as well as top end cars with speech recognition.

 

[DelGue]

There was a rumor here that Alexa was being used as an "eavesdropping" device, but it could have been just that. I never heard who was allegedly doing the eavesdropping.