Hotels are installing Amazon listening devices in every room
Hotels like the Wynn Las Vegas and the Marriott are installing Amazon listening devices in every room.
Two years ago, Geek Wire revealed that the Wynn Las Vegas hotel installed Amazon Echo devices in all their rooms.
You may soon be able to ask that question when traveling to the Wynn Las Vegas hotel, which announced today that it will place Amazon’s Echo device — powered by the voice assistant Alexa — in all 4,748 hotel rooms. Wynn Resorts called it an “industry first.”
According to Amazon, hotel customers love being spied on.
“Customers tell us they love how easy it is to get information, enjoy entertainment, and control connected devices by simply asking Alexa, and we want to offer those experiences everywhere customers want them,” said Daniel Rausch, Vice President, Amazon.
Amazon says, the Marriott will be installing Alexa's in their Marriott Hotels, Westin Hotels, St. Regis, Aloft and Autograph Collection Hotels.
Amazon Alexa in every Marriott Hotel
Visitors to Marriott hotels will soon be able to use Amazon Alexa to get hotel information, book guest services, play music and manage room controls, like lighting and temperature.
Amazon claims their microphone can be turned off.
"You can push the microphone on/off button built on top of the device. When the microphone on/off button is pressed, the microphones are electrically disconnected, cannot detect the wake word, and cannot stream any audio to the cloud. The light ring will turn red when the microphones are disconnected."
Who wouldn't want to stay in a room full of Amazon's spying devices?
Last month an article in USA Today revealed that Amazon's Alexa recorded a family's private conversations and sent them to a business associate.
"The Oregon family contacted Amazon after a private conversation in their home was recorded by their Amazon Echo — the voice-controlled smart speaker — and the recorded audio was sent to the phone of someone in Seattle who was in the father's contact list, they told a local TV station."
Thanks to Amazon's Rekognition not only will the police know where you went on vacation but now they will be able to subpoena the hotel you stayed in and find out what you watched on TV and what you said in the room!
A Google search for Amazon Alexa spying returned 1.4 million hits and a Google search for Amazon Echo spying returned over half a million hits.
Unfortunately its not just Amazon devices that you have to worry about, hotel and motel staff are also spying on how much you drink and how you dress.
Not only do these devices have a disturbing history of secretly listening to everything but they are easily hacked.
Two months ago, an article in Forbes revealed that Alexa devices can be easily hacked and record everything you say.
"Gaining access to Alexa turned out to be surprisingly easy. Checkmarx attached their malicious code to a seemingly innocuous app. The company used a simple calculator app for demonstration purposes. Checkmarx worked out a way for Alexa to record sentences of almost any length that included any word."
So the next time you plan a vacation, you might want to ask the hotel if Amazon is listening.