Those who have Amazon's Alexa in their home may feel like the gadget is almost part of the family.
People call on for answers to all their woes but many worry about how much their smart-speaker really listens, without the user realising.
Mathematician and expert on tech company algorithms, Dr Hannah Fry, recently urged Alexa owners to banish the device from the bedroom, and to limit the voice-activated assistant to certain rooms because they 'record for a short period afterwards', reports the Manchester Evening News .
"I think there are some spaces in your home, like the bedroom and bathroom, which should remain completely private", the associate professor at University College London told MailOnline.
"This technology is activated by a trigger word [such as 'Alexa'] but it keeps recording for a short period afterwards. People accept that, but we should all spend more time thinking about what it means for us."
The 35-year-old academic warned there are people 'very senior in tech' who will not have 'so much as a smartphone in their bedroom'.
Dr Fry added: "If a company is offering you a device with an internet-connected microphone at a low price, you have to think about that very carefully.
"I have both an Alexa and a Google voice-activated device and I regularly turn them both off. People really must set their own limits."
But Amazon has confirmed only 1% of Alexa requests are manually reviewed and recordings aren't customer identifiable.
The tech giant also said consumers have the option to opt-out of having their voice recordings included in the review.
An spokesperson said: "To help improve Alexa, we manually review and annotate a small fraction of 1% of Alexa requests.
"Access to data annotation tools is only granted to a limited number of employees who require them to improve the service, and our annotation process does not associate voice recordings with any customer identifiable information.
"Customers can opt-out of having their voice recordings included in the fraction of one percent of voice recordings that get reviewed."
You can manage the use of your voice recordings by visiting Settings > Help Improve Alexa in the Alexa app - where you can switch it off.
For more information on the privacy of your smart-speaker, head to their website here .
