Mobile

Microsoft Launches Free Version of Collaborative Chat App ‘Teams’

Posted on by Andy Miller

Microsoft has announced the launch of a free version of its collaborative chat app ‘Teams’ which doesn’t require an Office 365 subscription.

What Is Teams?

Introduced back in November 2016, ‘Teams’ (as the name suggests) is a platform designed to help collaborative working, and combines features such as workplace chat, meetings, notes, and attachments. Described by Microsoft as a “complete chat and online meetings solution”, it normally integrates with the company’s Office 365 subscription office productivity suite, and Teams is widely considered to be Microsoft’s answer to ‘Slack’.

Slack is a popular, multi-channel collaborative working hub that offers chat channels with companies and businesses you regularly work with, direct voice or video calls and screen-sharing, integrated drag-and-drop file sharing, and an App Directory with over 1,500 apps that can be integrated into Slack.

Teams is now believed to be used by around 200,000 organizations.

Free Version

The free version of Teams, which does not require an Office 365 account, offers the same basic features as regular Teams to anyone who wants to try it out. The hope is, of course, that this will increase user numbers, and tempt users away from Slack. Microsoft is also extending 365 cloud suite with the free version of Teams to try and bridge Microsoft 365 with Office 365.

Space and Features

The free version of Teams offers 10GB of team storage plus an additional 2GB for each user, with up to 300 people supported. Also, users have unlimited messages and search, there is guest access, as well as audio and video calls and screen sharing.

Within the Teams app, users can collaborate with colleagues on Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

What’s Missing?

Even though the free version offers quite a lot of storage space, the full version would offer users a massive 1TB. Also, unlike the full version, the free version doesn’t come with Yammer, Planner, SharePoint and OneDrive, plus the free version lacks some of the security features of the full version. This could make it less attractive to enterprises that are also looking to maximise compliance.

Warning To Help With Team Etiquette

One interesting aspect of Microsoft’s approach to the collaborative working platform is to build-on features that warn a user when they are doing something that goes against good practice and etiquette within teams. One key example of this is, with MyAnalytics, which works as an intelligent collaboration assistant in Outlook, is where users are warned / alerted if they are sending emails to co-workers outside their normal working hours.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

One good way to increase user numbers quickly, gain some ground in a battle with competitors, and to entice people to try and perhaps switch to a new service is to offer a good, usable, value-adding version of that service for free. That’s exactly what Microsoft is doing with its version of Teams.

Although larger enterprises may already be a long way down the road with their chosen collaborative working platform, and might be a bit put off by the idea of using a free version of a platform that is not quite on a par with the full version in terms of security features, a free version of Teams may be very attractive to SMEs looking to move into collaborative working with a low risk, trusted, scalable solution.

New System Detects & Warns Of Mobile Phone Use in Cars

Posted on by Andy Miller

Norfolk-based company Westcotec is piloting new technology that can detect whether a handheld mobile phone is in use in a passing vehicle, and then warn the occupants of the vehicle.

How?

In a UK first, the pilot scheme, which is taking place in four locations in Norfolk, uses a directional antenna, with a detector that picks up radio waves emitted from a mobile phone handset. The system measures the signal strength and length of activation of the signal, and if a signal is detected of a duration and signal strength sufficient to activate the system, the detector triggers a warning sign at the roadside.

Driver or Passenger?

Although the technology is advanced, one thing it can’t do yet is to tell the difference between the phone signal from a driver or a passenger in a vehicle. It also doesn’t record any video footage.

The system has also been designed to know whether a phone is being used hands-free or via a vehicle’s Bluetooth system (and if Bluetooth is being used it will not trigger the warning sign).

Why?

The system is designed to improve safety on UK roads by acting as a reminder to drivers. Driving while using a handheld mobile phone has been illegal in the UK since December 2003. The results of an RAC survey last year, however, show that 31% of motorists said that they had used a handheld mobile phone while driving. This was an increase on the 8% of those recorded in a survey 2 years previously as still using a handheld mobile phone while driving.

Unaware of Tougher Laws

Another RAC poll found that almost two-thirds of drivers are unaware of the punishment for using mobile phones at the wheel, even though it has been more than 12 months since the introduction of much tougher laws.

The poll showed that only 36% of the 2,000 UK motorists questioned knew that offenders face six penalty points and a £200 fine, and 41% believed more visible law enforcement is needed.

Drivers who receive a ban for offences now have to retake both the theory and practical parts of their driving test to get back on the road.

Prosecution Risk

Under the current UK law, picking up your phone while driving, even if stopped in traffic or at lights, will get you at least six points. If drivers are involved in a collision e.g. as a result of using a handheld device, they could be prosecuted for driving without due care and attention, which carries even greater penalties. If someone is killed in such a collision, the driver could be prosecuted for causing death by dangerous driving.

New Distractions

Many of the newer communication platforms and devices that could cause distractions in the car have made the news in recent years, such as iPhones (and Facetime), and the new Apple watch.

For example, back in January 2017, a family in Texas sued Apple because they believed that a driver who was allegedly distracted by a FaceTime call on his iPhone while at the wheel was the reason for a road accident which resulted in the death of their five-year-old daughter.

Also, in Canada in June this year, an Apple smartwatch was classified by a court as being the same kind of distraction as a mobile phone as a student was handed a fine for being observed looking at her Apple watch while waiting at traffic lights.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Considering the results of the RAC surveys some 15 years after the ban on handheld mobile phone use while driving, and a year after the doubling of penalties for being caught, it is clear that using technology to provide a friendly reminder to drivers can’t do any harm, and may even contribute to road safety.

If you and your employees drive to and from work and as part of your work it is essential that a hands-free device is used for any calls, or that calls are only made or received when your vehicle is safely parked. Even checking texts is constitutes a distraction.

The results of not heeding the law on this matter are not just the terrible human consequences, but also the potential damage to your business through driving penalties and reputational damage from the local publicity.

Now You Can Search eBay Via A Photo

Posted on by Andy Miller

Ebay has launched Image Search in the UK, an AI-based technology that means you can now enter a photo into the search box to help find the product you’re looking for.

Smart Phone Camera Search

With so many of us now using smart-phones, this innovative new feature means that users can take a photo on their phone of a product they’re inspired by and interested in, and use the machine learning technology that’s been added to eBay’s 1.1 billion item catalogue to quickly search for that product.

Technology Push at eBay

This latest addition to eBay’s search is part of a general push by eBay to bolt-on more technologies and forge alliances to increase the reach of its platform and to take the fight to competitors.

For example, eBay recently collaborated with worldwide media and entertainment company for culture and tech ‘Mashable’ so that an eBay widget could be introduced into Mashable. The widget allows Mashable’s audience to see and use a small eBay shop window overlaid on the page, and populated by products that are featured in Mashable articles, thereby allowing people to instantly buy what they they’re reading about. The benefit for eBay (according to eBay) is that eBay’s marketing team will be able to use it to better understand the factors that matter most to buyers making purchases off the eBay platform e.g. seller reputation and delivery time, and to use learned consumer insights from the pilot to deliver scalable solutions that accelerate eBay’s growth.

Smart Search Benefits

The sheer size of eBay’s catalogue means that it can sometimes take a long time for users to find the item they’re looking for, particularly if that item is very difficult to describe. Also, the watching and waiting aspect of eBay, its reputation as an auction site, and its lack of ability to actively engage have appeared to put it slightly at odds with a generation who simply want to quickly find what they’re looking for via their smart-phone, and purchase it. eBay also needed to find a way to get the most out of the vast number of user-generated images and item data that they’d accumulated through the years, and to capitalise on the instant product inspiration that people get e.g. from their social media feeds.

It is believed that the Image Search feature will be able to address all of these challenges, and will allow users to quickly find what they’re looking for while on the move. It may also encourage more seller to take to platform.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This is another illustration of how AI / machine learning is being put to practical and value-adding use as a medium for brand / company growth and user convenience. For businesses in retail such as for fashion and apparel, this new feature could bring increased sales and brand recognition, and could help new lines to generate sales rapidly.

For eBay, this innovative search feature could kill many birds with one stone towards the aim of delivering scalable solutions that can accelerate eBay’s growth.

Visual search is a growing trend, particularly in retail e.g. ASOS, Zalando and John Lewis have adopted visual search into their apps to save customers time, to make themselves more socially discoverable, to drive up-sell activity, and to ultimately increase app revenue. Visual search technology is likely to find its way onto many more platforms, retail websites and apps yet.

Samsung Phones Sending Photos Without Permission

Posted on by Andy Miller

The Samsung Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+ and Note 8 are all reported to have been recently affected by a bug in the Samsung Messages app that sends out photos from the user’s gallery without their permission … to random contacts.

What Happens?

According to Samsung phone users on social media and the company’s forum, some users have been affected by a bug in the default texting app on Galaxy, Samsung Messages. Reports indicate that the bug causes Samsung Messages to text photos stored in a user’s gallery to a random person listed as contact. The user is not informed that the pictures have been sent, or to whom, and there has even been one reported complaint that a person’s whole gallery was sent to a contact in the middle of the night!

Why?

Although there is no conclusive evidence concerning the cause, online speculation has centred on the bug being related to the interaction between Samsung Messages and recent RCS (Rich Communication Services) profile updates that have rolled out on carriers including T-Mobile. These updates have been rolled out to add updated and new features to the outdated SMS protocol e.g. better media sharing and typing indicators.

Acknowledged

Samsung is reported to have acknowledged the reports of problems, and is said to be looking into them. Samsung is also reported to have urged concerned customers to contact them directly on 1-800-SAMSUNG, and the company supposedly have been in contact with T-Mobile about the issue. T-Mobile is recorded as saying that it is not their issue.

What Can You Do?

As well contacting Samsung, and in the absence of any definitive news of a fix as yet, there are two main possible fixes that Samsung owners can pursue. These are:

  1. To go into the phone’s app settings and revoke Samsung Messages’ ability to access storage. This should stop Messages from sending photos or anything else stored on the device.
  2. Switch to a different texting app e.g. Android Messages or Textra. There are no (known) reports of these being affected by the same bug.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

People pay a lot of money to get the latest phones and to get the right contracts to allow for the high volume of communications associated with business use. It is (at the very least) annoying, but more generally scary and potentially damaging that personal, private image files can be randomly sent. These photos could, for example, contain commercially sensitive information that could put a company’s competitive advantage at risk if sent to the wrong person. Also, some photos could cause embarrassment for the user and / or the subject of the photo, and could damage business and personal relationships if they fell into the wrong hands. Some photos sent to the wrong person, as well as compromising privacy, could pose serious security risks.

At a time when we acknowledge that photos of ourselves / our faces stored by e.g. CCTV cameras are our personal data, Samsung could find itself on the wrong end of GDPR-related and other lawsuits if found to be directly responsible for the bug and its results.

Submit Your Dash-Cam Footage To Police

Posted on by Andy Miller

A new website has been launched by manufacturer Nextbase allowing drivers to upload their dash-cam footage of dangerous drivers they’ve filmed, thereby making it easy for drivers to submit their footage to the police.

Initiative

The initiative, which has already received widespread praise, allows owners of any brand of dash-cam, action camera, mobile phone or any other type of camera from any manufacturer to upload footage to the National Dash-Cam Safety Portal (NDSP), and then to send it on to the appropriate local England or Wales police force.

As well as uploading footage, drivers can use the free portal to submit witness statements, all of which are securely stored, and only viewable by the police force to which they are submitted.

How Does It Work?

Part of the Nextbase website, the portal at https://www.nextbase.co.uk/national-dash-cam-safety-portal/ shows a clickable map of England and Wales divided into regions. Drivers with footage to submit are asked to click on the region where the incident recorded took place. Clicking on the geographic region then reveals the police force for all regions. Clicking on the relevant police force region should, when / if the police force has chosen to use the portal, send you to the relevant police force website and allow you to submit your statement and footage.

Drivers submitting footage are also prompted to contact their local force by email or by calling 101, and to email their witness statement to a given police email address in order to help speed up the process of reporting the incident.

Since the initiative is still in its early stages, many of the relevant police forces are not yet fully participating in the video-submitting system.

Dash-Cam Footage Can Be Used In Court

Dash-cam footage can provide useful information and evidence in court cases and the first jail sentence for dangerous driving that used dash cam footage as its main evidence took place in 2015.

Things To Remember

Drivers submitting footage and statements via the portal should be aware that by doing so they are filing an official police report, the process can require the driver to take time to answer lots of questions, and that there is a possibility that they may be required to appear in court. Also, if the footage shows the driver who submitted the footage to be breaking the law e.g. speeding to catch up with and film the perpetrator, they may also be prosecuted.

The NDSP web page provides FAQs to answer questions about the type / quality of footage and the process.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Anyone who drives on UK roads, particularly as part of their job and / or their daily commute is likely to have witnessed dangerous or irresponsible driving. Dash-cams have provided one way for drivers to have some fall-back protection against the reckless and / or criminal actions of others and against potentially costly insurance implications. Footage provides something more than just testimony and conjecture.

The big advantage of the NDSP portal is that, for the first time, it provides a central point for drivers to go to submit footage, and it simplifies the process of submitting footage and statements to the correct police force.

Critics could argue, however, that this initiative could be promoting a trade-off between road safety and privacy, and could be encouraging a culture of citizen surveillance and suspicion.

For Nextbase, the portal (and the media reports about it) will provide some positive publicity if the system works properly and securely, and since it is part of their product website, could even lead to some more sales of dash-cams.

Foldable Galaxy X Smartphone Could Cost You £1,400!

Posted on by Andy Miller

After its official launch, planned for next year, it has been reported that the new Samsung Galaxy X smartphone could be priced at as much as £1,400!

More Than The iPhone X

This will mean that the world-first flexible-screened, foldable smartphone will be entering the market with a price that’s one-third higher than even the Apple iPhone X which was criticised by some for its £999 price tag.

The high price is thought to reflect the high R&D budget that went into its development, and as a premium for its innovative features.

The Galaxy X has essentially been 7 years in the making, as a prototype version of the foldable phone was shown by Samsung back in 2011.

What’s So Special About It?

The Galaxy X has two inside panels and one outside panel with the two inside panels forming the 7.3-inch OLED screen when the phone is unfolded, thereby giving the user a much larger screen area. As well as having a large screen area, the resolution is expected to be 4K (3840×2160 pixels), thereby giving it high-res when folded.

It is also rumoured that the new phone will have a dual-camera at the rear with one of the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon processors.

LG Also Going Foldable?

There have been rumours that Samsung’s rival LG is also planning to release foldable devices that could feature more advanced outward folding tech than Samsung.

To Be Shown February 2019?

Even though Samsung investors were informed that the new Galaxy X would be launched in 2018, it now looks likely that it won’t actually be shown until the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February 2019.

Production Problems

Part of the delay in the production of a commercial version of the Galaxy X from the first sighting of its prototype 7 years ago is thought to be down to production problems in the development of the flexible plastic screens.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

So much of business is now conducted using smartphones, and innovative smartphones that provide the user with features that have a real value are likely to be popular. It seems that the main benefits of the Galaxy X are that it will offer flexibility and convenience to the user with a screen area between a phone and a tablet (that can be folded), and for the initial interest factor that being seen to own and use one will create.

For the manufacturers, Galaxy X also provides a way to compete with Apple and some of its other larger competitors such as LG, and to be first to the marketplace with a foldable, flexible smartphone.

Tech Tip – Improve Phone Speed With Lightweight Apps

Posted on by Andy Miller

If your phone has limited memory storage and you regularly use Facebook and Twitter, installing lightweight versions of these apps could help to speed up your phone.

Facebook Lite, for example, works just as well as the full version yet uses a fraction of the resources of the full app. The Facebook Lite app is small and allows you to save space on your phone and use Facebook in 2G conditions. To use it:

– Go to play.google.com

– Locate the app, and install it.

– n.b. Google also has lightweight versions of YouTube

Also, Twitter has a lightweight client which you can find at mobile.twitter.com.

Facebook Losing the Battle For Teenage Attention

Posted on by Andy Miller

A study by Pew in the US has found that Facebook is now lagging behind YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat, as a platform where teenagers spend their time.

Down To 4th Place

The study, which involved 750 teens in one month earlier this year, found that Facebook has experienced a 20% point drop since 2015 in its usage by teenagers. Even though 51% use Facebook, this is still a long way behind the 85% preferring YouTube (Google-owned), 72% preferring Instagram (which is owned by Facebook anyway), and the 69% preferring Snapchat.

What’s Been Happening?

An eMarketer report illustrates what’s been happening. The report predicts that in 2018, 2.2 million 12 to 17-year-olds and 4.5 million 18 to 24-year-olds will regularly use Facebook in the UK, but this is 700,000 fewer than in 2017. Most of the young defectors appear to be going instead to Snapchat.

The same report shows that there has been a surge in older users of Facebook, and over-55s will become the second-biggest demographic of Facebook users this year. For example, 500,000 new over-55s are expected to join Facebook in 2018, and this will bring the number of 55- to 65-year-old-plus regular Facebook users this year to 6.4 million.

Passing Over Instagram For Snapchat

One of the reasons why Facebook bought Instagram was so that it could at least keep some of the young people who were deserting Facebook as customers as of one of its services.

Unfortunately, what’s been happening is that young people appear to have been leaving Facebook, and going to Snapchat instead of Instagram. For example, in the last 3 years Snapchat has more than doubled its take-up rate among UK users of social networking sites and apps to 43%.

Why?

It is an age-old feature of teenagers and young people, because of a need for independence and privacy, they would prefer not to go to the same places as their parents, and this is what has been happening on Facebook to some extent.

Also, many more young people have smartphones, and they use them to go where other members of their age / peer group go i.e. on Snapchat. It doesn’t help also that Facebook has received a lot of bad publicity recently over its involvement with the sharing of user data with Cambridge Analytica, and the part it played in allegedly being used by representatives of certain foreign powers to help sway the election result towards Trump.

Facebook has also proved particularly attractive in recent years to older people who have found that its video and photo features are easy to use, and enable them to keep up with the social lives of their older children, and grandchildren,

Facebook For Kids

Facebook has long known that it has been attracting an older demographic, and that young people have been leaving the platform in pursuit of a new experience, and to stay in touch with other members of their peer group.

Attracting a new, young group of Facebook users looks likely, therefore, to be one of the main reasons why, back in December 2017, Facebook announced that it was launching a kind of Facebook for children the form of ‘Messenger Kids’. Some commentators said at the time that it appeared to be a way for Facebook to recruit its next generation of users, and to capture the attention of 6 to 12-year-olds before Snapchat or a similar social network competitor

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For Facebook, even though it recognises (and is trying to solve) the problem that it faces in attracting teenage users, it still remains the most popular social networking sites in the UK by a long way, boasting 32.6 million total regular users this year. Also, Facebook’s Instagram is looks likely to grow its user base from 15.7 million to 18.4 million this year, although it also appears to be losing young users to Snapchat.

For businesses wishing to advertise, Facebook is likely, therefore, to be a way to advertise to older age groups e.g. those in their 40,s, 50s, and above. In fact, Facebook has also announced an overhaul of its news feed algorithm to prioritise what friends and family share, and to reduce the amount of non-advertising content from publishers and brands.

Businesses with older customer demographics may also want to keep making the most of their company Facebook business page.

7-Fold Rise in Mobile Fraud

Posted on by Andy Miller

It seems that as we spend more time using mobile devices, the fraudsters are following us as a new RSA Security report shows a massive rise in mobile fraud over the last 3 years.

Up Nearly 700%!

The latest quarterly report by fraud and risk intelligence experts at RSA Security shows that as the volume of mobile app transactions has risen by 200% since 2015, accordingly the growth rate for fraudulent transactions has increased to a massive 680%.

New Accounts and ‘Burner Phones’

One of the key trends at the heart of the rise in mobile fraud is the apparent rise of the use of fake new accounts and ‘burner / burn phones’ to commit fraud.

A burner / burn phone is a mobile phone handset that is acquired for temporary use, is usually prepaid / without a contract in order to retain the user’s anonymity, and can be discarded if necessary.

Alongside the burner phone, fraudsters are also known to use stolen identities to set up fake ‘money mule’ accounts, purely for the purpose of collecting the cash from their fraudulent activities.

The RSA report shows that new accounts and new devices have been used in this way in 32% of all the fraudulent transactions in the last quarter.

Phishing Still Top

The report shows that phishing is still the top fraudulent activity accounting for 48% of all fraud attacks in Q1 of 2018.

Trojan Malware & Payment Card Compromise

Other popular frauds involve the use of Trojan malware to steal financial credentials. This method was used in one in four fraud attacks in Q1 2018.

Also, using details from compromised cards is still a very common activity among fraudsters, and the RSA researchers who compiled the report claim to have recovered more than 3.1 million unique compromised cards and card details (which included verification numbers) on offer from online sources in Q1.

Mobile App Security

It is believed that poor security in mobile apps is allowing many criminals to hijack mobile applications and siphon off credentials and funds from many unwitting users.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

These figures show that our increasing use of mobile devices and apps has opened the door to even more channels for fraudsters. There is clearly a responsibility among mobile app developers and those commissioning mobile apps to deliver their services to ensure that security is built-in from the ground up. This should mean making sure that all source code is secure and known bug-free, all data exchanged over app should be encrypted, caution should be exercised when using third-party libraries for code, and only authorised APIs should be used. Also, developers should be building-in high levels of authentication, using tamper-detection technologies, using tokens instead of device identifiers to identify a session, using the best cryptography practices e.g. store keys in secure containers, and conducting regular, thorough testing.

As users of mobile devices and apps, we also need to pay attention to our own levels of security. For example, we can take precautions to stop ourselves from falling victim to mobile fraud by using mobile security and antivirus scan apps, only using trusted apps / trusted app sources, uninstalling old apps and turning off connections when not using them, locking our phones when not in use, using 2-factor authentication, and using a VPN rather than just the free Wi-Fi when out and about.

Alexa Records and Sends Private Conversation

Posted on by Andy Miller

A US woman has complained of feeling “invaded” after a private home conversation was recorded by her Amazon’s voice assistant, and then sent it to a random phone contact … who happened to be her husband’s employee.

What?!!

As first reported by US news outlet KIRO 7, the woman identified only as ‘Danielle’ had a conversation about hardwood flooring in the privacy of her own home in Portland, Oregon. Unknown to her, however, her Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa via her Amazon Echo not only recorded a seemingly ‘random’ conversation, but then sent the recording to a random phone contact without being expressly asked to do so.

The woman was only made aware that she had been recorded when she was contacted by her husband’s employee, who lives over 100 miles away in Seattle, who was able to tell her the subject of her recent conversation.

How Could It Have Happened?

Last year Amazon introduced a service whereby Amazon Echo users could sign up to the Alexa Calling and Messaging Service from the Alexa app. This means that all of the contacts saved to your mobile phone are linked to Alexa automatically, and you can call and message them using voice commands via your Echo.

In the case of the woman from Portland, Amazon has reportedly explained the incident as being the result of an “unlikely” string of events which were that:

  • Her Alexa started recording after it registered as hearing its name or another “wake word” (chosen by users).
  • Subsequently, in the following conversation (about hardwood floors), Alexa registered part of the conversation as being a ‘send message’ request.
  • Alexa would / should have said at that point, out loud, ‘To whom?’
  • It is believed that Alexa then interpreted part of the background conversation as a name in the woman’s phone contact list.
  • The selected contact was then sent a message containing the recoding of the private conversation.

Investigated

The woman requested a refund for her voice assistant device, saying that she felt invaded.

Amazon has reportedly apologised for the incident, has investigated what happened, and has determined that was an extremely rare occurrence. Amazon is, however, reported to be “taking steps” to avoid this from happening in the future.

Not The First Time

Amazon’s intelligent voice assistant has made the news in the past for some unforeseen situations that helped to perpetuate the fears of users that their home devices could have a more sinister dimension and / or could malfunction or be used to invade privacy. For example, back in 2016, US researchers found that they could hide commands in white noise played over loudspeakers and through YouTube videos in order to get smart devices to turn on flight mode or open a website. The researchers also found that they could embed commands directly into recordings of music or spoken text.

Also, although Amazon was cleared by an advertising watchdog, there was the case of the television advert for its Amazon’s Echo Dot smart speaker activating a viewer’s device and placing an order for cat food.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Although it may have been a series of events resulting in a ‘rare’ occurrence, the fact is that this appears to be a serious matter relating to the privacy of users that is likely to re-ignite many of the fears of home digital assistants being used as listening devices, or could be hacked and used to gather personal information that could be used to commit crime e.g. fraud or burglary.
If the lady in this case was an EU citizen, it is likely that Amazon could have fallen foul of the new GDPR and, therefore, potentially liable to a substantial fine if the ICO thought it right and necessary.

Adding the Alexa Calling and Messaging service to these devices was really just the beginning of Amazon’s plans to add more services until we are using our digital assistants to help with many different and often personal aspects of our lives e.g. from ordering goods and making appointments, to interacting with apps to control the heating in the house, and more. News of this latest incident could, therefore, make some users nervous about taking the next steps to trusting Amazon’s Alexa with more personal details and important aspects of their daily lives.

Amazon may need to be more proactive and overt in explaining how it is addressing the important matters of privacy and security in its digital assistant and devices in order to gain the trust that will enable it to get an even bigger share in the expanding market, and successfully offer a wider range of services via Alexa and Echo devices.