Amazon confirmed an Echo owner's privacy-sensitive allegation on Thursday, after Seattle CBS affiliate KIRO-7 reported that an Echo device in Oregon sent private audio to someone on a user's contact list without permission.
"Unplug your Alexa devices right now," the user, Danielle (no last name given), was told by her husband's colleague in Seattle after he received full audio recordings between her and her husband, according to the KIRO-7 report. The disturbed owner, who is shown in the report juggling four unplugged Echo Dot devices, said that the colleague then sent the offending audio to Danielle and her husband to confirm the paranoid-sounding allegation. (Before sending the audio, the colleague confirmed that the couple had been talking about hardwood floors.)
After calling Amazon customer service, Danielle said she received the following explanation and response: "'Our engineers went through all of your logs. They saw exactly what you told us, exactly what you said happened, and we're sorry.' He apologized like 15 times in a matter of 30 minutes. 'This is something we need to fix.'"
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