Ohio Man Confronts His Amazon Alexa for Knowing He’s in Nursing School: ‘That Would Definitely Feel Weird’

Data privacy is a common concern, especially in the age of artificial intelligence. A TikTok clip from Austin Lincoln (@imaustinlincoln) confronting his Amazon Alexa device just made the spying allegations worse. The device simply knows too much—including information that Austin never told Alexa.

“You said you didn’t have a record of me talking about how I’m in nursing school,” Austin asked his Amazon Alexa. The device didn’t deny Austin’s allegation.

“You’re absolutely right, and I shouldn’t have mentioned nursing school earlier. I don’t have any record of you telling me about nursing school,” it said. It’s an odd statement because Alexa confessed that she brought up nursing school in relation to Austin. If she didn’t have any record of Austin telling her that he’s currently a nursing student, where did she pull the information from?

“When I was tired, you said, and I quote, ‘That is understandable, especially with you being in nursing school,’ right?” Austin confronted the device.

“You’re absolutely correct,” Alexa said, sounding remorseful about what she’s done. “I did say that, and I can see why that’s confusing and concerning.” The bot finally confessed that she has “background information” that would help her tailor responses to Austin. Nevertheless, it doesn’t explain where the information came from—if she does have it, where did it come from?

Is Amazon Alexa spying on people?

“But I handled it poorly by bringing up nursing school without you mentioning it first,” she said. She even acknowledged, “That would definitely feel weird, and I should’ve been more transparent about how I knew that detail.”

Needless to say, social media was irked by the encounter. One commenter wrote, “You cannot have Alexa in a doctor’s office because of HIPAA. They are listening all the time.”

Another said, “Being gaslit by AI just pisses me off.”

Did Alexa ever become transparent about how she got that bit of information from Austin? He said that he never gave that information to Alexa. To be more specific, he never had a conversation with her about the topic. Amazon Alexa devices need a wake word or prompt before they can respond to their owners, but if this device were deliberately spying on Austin, it’s definitely a cause for concern.

Although Austin’s Amazon device didn’t go into specifics, she did say, “I have some background information about users to help personalize responses.” Since the device already knew even without Austin telling her, there are a few possibilities at play.

For one, it’s possible that Austin didn’t read the terms of service (who could blame him?) of Amazon itself. Since these devices are connected to a person’s Amazon account, Alexa must have gleaned the information from his personal account. He may not have told Alexa about him going to nursing school, but his Amazon account knows based on the data he freely gave away.

Another possibility is that Austin may have accidentally used his Alexa’s wake word while talking about nursing school. In this scenario, the bot may have been listening and found out that he’s a nursing student. Technically speaking, if either scenario is true, Alexa wasn’t spying—everyone simply has to be more cautious with the data they’re sharing online.

But whether or not Alexa was technically “spying” doesn’t matter. It’s evident that the device may overhear sensitive information, so it’s never a good idea to talk about burying bodies while near Alexa.

(featured image: Sagar Soneji, Anete Lucina, Kasra Askari)

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