New Amazon Echo Camera Offer Is A Huge, Creepy Security Risk

When the world’s biggest online retailer introduced the always-on feature of its Echo devices, it sparked a firestorm of debates with regards to security. As such, Amazon would have had to expect the same to happen when it introduced the Echo Look, which is a device that’s equipped with a camera. What’s worse, it’s designed to be placed in the user’s bedroom, arguably the most private area in the home.

The device will cost customers $199 to get and it was meant for the fashion-centric crowd who might need a little help with their choices of clothing items, Business Insider reports. Based on the marketing materials, the Echo Look will take shots of the customers and suggest clothing options that might be to their taste.

Aside from that, the device uses artificial intelligence in order to judge the outfits that the users wear, providing them feedback not unlike what fashionable friends would give. In any case, it’s all a little creepy and poses a huge security risk for the users. A lot of it has to do with the fact that, by Amazon’s own admission, the photos are going to be stored on their server indefinitely.

As TechCrunch points out, there’s a reason why so many people choose to cover the cameras of their laptops with tape. There have been enough incidents of spying via smart devices to merit some level of paranoia beyond what those wearing tinfoil hats feel. It’s actually a real threat.

With the introduction of a device like the Echo Look, where the voice-activation feature is always on, the threat of being spied becomes infinitely more likely. In response to these concerns, an Amazon spokesperson told the publication that the new device requires the same wake word as the original Echo.

“Echo Look uses the same on-device keyword spotting as Echo, to detect the wake word and only the wake word,” the spokesperson said. “When the wake word is detected, the light ring turns blue to indicate that Alexa is streaming audio to the AWS cloud.”