Use Alexa At Your Own Risk…She Will Not Keep A Secret

And, there I thought Alexa was my friend, turns out that Alexa is anything but.  An investigative report by ‘Deutsche Welle’, a German news outlet, describes the darker side of Alexa.  It probably also applies to other similar applications, like Windows 10 'Cortana', for example.

Martin Muno’s report describes the use or misuses of this AI, called Alexa.  He writes, in part, the following.
“It's no surprise that Amazon is using Alexa to listen to people's conversations. That's just one more signal that we are moving into an era in which our privacy is no longer protected, DW's Martin Muno writes.
If you ask Amazon's voice-activated virtual assistant, Alexa, whether it is spying on you, the device will reply that it is not and add that your data privacy is very important to it. But then, last week, we learned the truth: Amazon has its employees listen to and transcribe thousands of Alexa conversations each day — without users knowing. According to Amazon, this helps improve the customer experience.”
For his full report follow the link shown.
https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-amazons-alexa-lies-to-and-spies-on-consumers/a-48311738

The old adage of nothing is for free holds again; in the excitement to get something for free we let our guard down, and use these fantastic new features without reservation.   During WW II, Hitler’s propaganda was “Pst Feind Hört Mit!”  (Psst! enemy listens too), this might be a good warning in our time as well.  Just because we are told that our lives will be improved by using this or the other App, or software ‘improvement’, it does not mean it is without risk of privacy invasion.

From my perspective, Alexa and I will be parting our ways; I will research on how to evict her from my life because I can no longer trust her to keep our secrets.  My Amazon Fire Tablet allows me to turn off  'Alexa' in 'Settings', which I did, however, I could not uninstall this function. 

Windows 10 has a built-in 'Cortana', which cannot be removed, however, one can disable many aspects of her, under 'Settings', which I did.  In addition, I always have a tape over the camera eye anyway, from the very beginning.

I am not entirely convinced that my privacy has been restored by my actions, at least I did whatever I could, preventing overt intrusion.