Can Alexa record speech?

[xFlip]

My mum has carers who have started to press the button to disable the microphone whenever they visit.

Perhaps they are worried that they are being recorded but, when I last checked, it was not possible for Alexa to make recordings.

Has Amazon changed something or announced something which could be making my mum's visitors get worried?  I don't want to tell them Alexa can't record and then find the feature has been recently introduced.

[renegade600]

the echo will not record until it hears the wakeup word.  some people are just paranoid.  sounds like someone has something to hide.   makes me want to hide a recorder just to find out why. 

[strayfish]

My mum has carers who have started to press the button to disable the microphone whenever they visit.

Perhaps they are worried that they are being recorded but, when I last checked, it was not possible for Alexa to make recordings.

Has Amazon changed something or announced something which could be making my mum's visitors get worried?  I don't want to tell them Alexa can't record and then find the feature has been recently introduced.

It records if it hears the wake word or something like it and can't respond. For instance, 'electric fences' activated mine and, as it couldn't determine a command, it recorded a clip of what followed (it was something on the TV). These are short bursts and they can be found in the app under Settings < history. So, to answer your question, if the carers used a word that sounds like the wake word and just carried on talking, it might record a short burst of that utterance and they'd be able to tell by the blue light if something like that had happened. It wouldn't record a whole conversation so while it's 'On' all the time, it's only waiting for the wake word, not making ongoing recordings. That said, and as Renegade has observed, if they're in the habit of saying things they shouldn't be saying, they have reason to be concerned in case it wakes and catches a burst of that. If they're not, they have nothing to worry about and they shouldn't be disabling your mum's device.

[restamp]

As far as I know, the "mute" button (red ring) on the Echo is implemented entirely in software.  Therefore, it is theoretically possible to push a software update to the device which would allow some entity to surreptitiously listen in using the Echo's mics, muted or not.  This is not something you or I could do, and Amazon has been sensitive to even turning over to the authorities the audio that the Echo now captures normally, no doubt realizing that being caught engaging in something of this nature would result in a huge negative impact on their market.  Thus, I consider the "mute" button to be more of a convenience feature -- something I use when, say, a story about the Alexa app is airing on TV and causing the Echo to false a lot -- than a security one.

[Alpha Bitch]

My mum has carers who have started to press the button to disable the microphone whenever they visit.

That is NOT their job to do so.  Is your mother giving them permissions to do so?  Otherwise, I would complain to the supervisors, manager & director of the company the care givers come from.  Or have them assign different care givers to your mother.