Should you leave Alexa, Google, Siri active while working from home during coronavirus pandemic?

Hey Siri, what’s on my calendar? Hey Google, what time is it? Hey Alexa, turn on the light.

The artificial intelligence speakers are taking over our lives, but should they be left on, listening to everything you say during the course of the day, especially now that so many people are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Some experts say no, you don’t need cyber ears from prying into your workplace conference calls.

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Bloomberg reported that a U.K. law firm is advising its staff to turn off any device that could be listening when you’re discussing sensitive matters.

Mishcon de Reya LLP said not to even have the smart devices in your work area.

Not only do they suggest devices like Amazon’s Alexa be banned, along with items like Ring and even baby monitors could be a security issue when working from home, Bloomberg reported.

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A month ago, researchers from Northeastern University and Imperial College London found that Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant are activated unintentionally about 19 times a day, Forbes reported.

The devices engage when they think they hear the wake word like “Hey Google” or “Hey Alexa,” researchers found. Siri answered to the word seriously, the researchers found.

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So what can you do if you don’t want your cyber assistant listening in?

You can follow the guide that the law firm said, get rid of them in places where a sensitive conversation could happen.

The other option is to turn off the microphone when you don’t want it to listen to you, Forbes reported.