Alexa

[BassBug]

My 17yo daughter has been gifted Alexa for her birthday today by her mum (ex wife) . I'm livid because nobody asked me if it was OK. I don't want Alexa in my house and I don't know what to do next. My daughter lives with me. Her mum and I are divorced but we have a good relationship as friends.

Does your ex know how strongly you feel about this prior to purchasing? Does your daughter?
Does she have camera and mic blockers on her phone?

I’m with the OP. People who use VA tech don’t understand how it works! Every word you speak at home is listened to. Probably recorded somewhere and could be parsed. Given where we are with the likes of Meta this isn’t too far fetched. Can’t imagine having to watch every word I utter in my home - just because I also have a phone/laptop - these are different things!

I would never allow an Alexa in my house and I’m wary of others’ houses where they are present.

@BassBug- you might want to ask for an exchange or ask her to use it at uni when she’s 18. Or even better - educate her on why it’s a bad idea..

OP what do you do, or say that you are so worried about being overheard? You really do sound extremely paranoid. Does your DD have a mobile, computer, etc., do you stop her using those?

This is a wind up surely 🤣🤣 CIA might hear you.

Do you have some state secrets you like to discuss at home? If not then why does it matter if Alexa listens to your life which is probably approximately as boring as the rest of us...

Honestly I don't get why it's worth fretting over.

Totally with you actually OP. There’s no way we’d have an Alexa in the house, some people are so naive

I don't think any 17 yo wants an Alexa for her birthday.
I'm getting an Hollister voucher for my 17 yo relative

Yes, she should do because I can remember telling her that I'd come back from a friend's house and they had Alexa and I made my feelings very clear.

Luddite?

Don't forget to check the light fittings for bugs and the bookshelf for secret cameras. CIA coming to getcha

If you have a good relationship with her mum as friends, then I suggest that might be your starting point for a conversation. You know, rather than running the risk of having your keystrokes logged by some randos on the internet. (Wait, we can do that, can't we?!)

I'm not surprised at how many people prize the incomparable convenience of Alexa above privacy concerns.

But I'm really surprised by how many people can't fathom the privacy concerns, ranging from bafflement to outright mockery.

I’m with the OP - we’ve never have Alexa in our house. Anything that is designed to listen to our conversations, scrape our data and sell it on without our consent is a no. And yes, I use an iphone but I disable off Facebook etc which are set to listen in the background and check on privacy settings of new apps. And no, I don’t posses a tin foil hat. I just don’t want anyone monetising my private conversations.

I’m pretty shocked that people are so lax about this, tbh.

Naive about what? If Jeff Bezos wants to listen to my partner and I swearing at the PlayStation or bickering about who's turn it is to do the washing he can be my guest. If, for some bizarre reason, I needed to have a conversation so private that I didn't want Google's AI to listen to it, I'd turn it off.

Sell my advertising data, the ads I get on my phone are almost always really useful. Every plug, light and speaker in my house is hooked up to the smart system. Fridge, washing machine...we've got a ceramic central heating system.

I disagree that the majority of people are naive about how much their online activity is monitored and what that data is used for. I expect most people simply don't care.

I can see why it makes you uncomfortable, but at 17 this feels less like a safety issue and more like an opportunity to model critical use of technology.
Discussing what data is collected, what can be switched off, and how to reduce exposure is likely to do more good long-term than a blanket ban, especially when she’ll be making these decisions independently very soon anyway.

Are you seriously not going to visit your daughter if she has an alexa in her home when she moves out?

You also said she has ADHD, and alexas are fantastic for externalising things you need to remember, and mark off tasks that need completing in a specific priority. They are useful aids for ADHD as a disability.

Beginning to see why her mum is an ex …..

Don’t speak for all 17 year olds. People are different you know?

I'm pretty certain I was gifted (and bought) items at 17 which parents disapproved of, but was otherwise ok if it was confined to my bedroom i.e. my private space. Ranging from tech items to non-tech items, and down to what music I played in my bedroom.

YABU OP.

Both of ours would have hated Hollister vouchers!

If it’s any consolation, we have to ask Alexa everything at least twice. I don’t know if she’s genuinely hard of hearing though, or just stalling for time while she asks Siri to Google the answer.

Anything that is designed to listen to our conversations...

It's not designed to listen to your conversations. It's designed to listen to things you say to it. Of course that doesn't mean it doesn't occasionally activate and record in error, or record background conversations.

...scrape our data and sell it on without our consent is a no.

You give your consent by using the devices/apps/software, as is the case with most technology.

Young people? My parents are in their eighties and have had Alexa set up on their Sonos speaker for years!

Isn’t it how everyone plays music?

Tell her to keep it in her room, but I would be lost without it. Alexa set a five minute timer, Alexa what is 17 percent of 2,500, Alexa how many days till Christmas. Alexa play Christmas songs. I just thought every household had this now.

Not wanting an Alexa in the house is one thing. Being 'livid' on your daughter's birthday, especially where the maternal dynamic sounds difficult and the DD has some additional challenges, is not the time for the moral high ground.

You probably need to weigh up the damage you anticipate from the Amazon eavesdroppers vs the damage you will do to your DD with a didactic approach. Perhaps this is one to sleep on and see it play out in a more measured way.

Not to be rude OP, but this is extremely paranoid behavior.

What do you think is going to happen if you go round to a friend's house and talk about last night's football?

Literally noone at Amazon cares if you say "I'm gonna go for a shit at 9am" every day. The literal worst thing that will happen is they send you a notification saying "we think you might need toilet paper" fucking grow up man. Your gonna lose your kid over a speaker otherwise.