Alexa’s poor reputation for privacy may soon worsen as a patent filed by the firm suggests the virtual assistant may start listening before its ‘wake word’ is said.
Under the plans Alexa will be able to detect when it is being given a command even if the wake word is said at the end of the sentence instead of at the front.
The move raises concerns over user privacy as Alexa will, by default, always be listening to conversations on the off-chance its wakeword is spoken.
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Alexa’s poor reputation for privacy may soon worsen as a patent filed by the firm suggests the virtual assistant may start listening before its ‘wake word’ is said. Alexa will be able to detect when it is being given a command even if the wake word is said at the end of the sentence
The patent, filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office , reveals the Seattle-fimrs plans for the next evolutionary step for it Alexa’s technology.
Amazon insists Alexa can only be activated when one of its ‘wake word’ is uttered – either Alexa, Computer or Echo.
Rival systems from Apple and Google use a similar process, which requires ‘Hey Siri’ or ‘Hey Google’ respectively to be said before listening.
This will be set to change if Amazon decides to follow up on its patent.
It was filed earlier this year and went public last week on the USPTO website.
It states: ‘A user may not always structure a spoken command in the form of a wake word followed by a command (eg. ‘Alexa, play some music’).
‘Instead, a user may include the command before the wake word – eg. ‘Play some music, Alexa’ – or even insert the wake word in the middle of a command – eg. ‘Play some music, Alexa, the Beatles please’.
‘While such phrasings may be natural for a user, current speech processing systems are not configured to handle commands that are not preceded by a wake word.’
An Amazon spokesperson told MailOnline: ”The technology in this patent is not in use, and referring to the potential use of patents is highly speculative.
‘Like many companies, we file a number of forward-looking patent applications that explore new scientific ideas that may not make it into customer-facing products.
‘Patents take multiple years to receive and do not necessarily reflect current or near-future state of products and services.’
The new method Alexa will use to backtrack when it hears the wake word is relatively simple – listen to everything and detect the command using the same speech recognition it uses currently
The new method Alexa will use to backtrack when it hears the wake word is relatively simple – listen to everything and detect the command using the same speech recognition it uses currently.
Snippets of conversation up to 30 seconds long would be recorded and then wiped from the had-drive, the patent states.
There is also no indication that this patent will never come to fruition, firms the size of Amazon regularly file a range of ideas and technology to protect themselves.
Often, they never see the light of day.
If Alexa detects its wake word in one of these recordings it will save it in the same way it currently does.
This procedure is already flawed, as revealed in a MailOnline investigation which found some ‘unintentional’ snippets of conversation were being recorded when it mistakes another noise for a ‘wake word’.
A host of sounds and conversations were recorded without a clear or legitimate wake word being uttered – some when there was not even a human nearby.
Largely unknown ‘secret’ archives revealed eerie snippets of users’ friends, families and children being recorded while they were completely unaware – and without a clear or legitimate wake word being uttered.
In one household, Alexa seems to have developed an obsession with the family dog – waking up 13 times to record it barking.
In a worrying twist, this was often when there was no one in the house who could possibly have ordered it to activate.
You can find out what your device knows about you and what it has been listening to here and read on to see what we unearthed.
