Amazon sends German voice commands from other user after AVG request

Amazon accidentally sent a German the wav files of all voice commands of a stranger after a request to view his data. It turned out that those files were used to trace who the stranger was.

The German magazine c’t tracked down the stranger by listening to the audio and he was shocked to find that the audio from his Echo devices had been forwarded to a stranger. The man had Echo devices in his bedroom, shower and living room. In addition to the wav files, Amazon sent PDFs and search terms entered at Amazon in zip files.

Amazon said it was a one-time human error. Initially, the company had only deleted the data from the download server and received no response. After the magazine made the report, Amazon did contact both customers with an explanation about the incident.

Customers have the right to request access to their own data from companies. This is possible due to the introduction of AVG privacy legislation in May of this year. Many companies have made it possible to view data on this.