You’re Home Alone With Alexa. Are Your Secrets Safe?

Privacy at home is something most people take for granted. But the home has become the latest frontier in data harvesting for big tech companies. Smart speakers and their voice assistants, app-activated thermostats and internet-connected everything else are scooping up information that could prove valuable to product designers, advertisers, governments and law enforcement. A range of interest groups, from civil liberties organizations to consumer advocates and children’s privacy watchdogs, worry about an erosion of privacy.

Amazon’s Echo, animated by the voice assistant Alexa, and Google’s Home, with its Assistant, keep track of the questions people ask and store recordings of them. Many appliances and other gizmos are marketed as “smart home” devices, a catchall term that typically means they’re able to communicate with a smartphone or a central hub (like Echo or Home) and take instructions by voice commands, remote controls or a touchscreen. Such smart devices include ceiling fans made by Hunter Fan; thermostats made by Ecobee, Emerson and Nest; Kwikset and Schlage branded door locks; and self-steering vacuums from iRobot. Manufacturers of these and other smart devices can develop a catalog of information about how people use them.