Months after Apple faced off with the FBI over an order to unlock an iPhone connected to the San Bernardino, California, shooting investigation, Amazon.com Inc. was thrust center-stage in its own digital privacy debate when Arkansas prosecutors demanded data from a murder suspect's Echo device.

Amazon initially objected to the demands last year, only to later grant access after the suspect consented to turning over recordings and other data from the popular consumer device. The dustup nonetheless raised questions about when “Alexa,” the Echo device's virtual assistant, is listening—and what data the Echo collecting.

Speaking Thursday at a Consumer Federation of America conference in Washington, an in-house lawyer at Amazon stated flatly: “No, Echo is not spying on you.”

“Quite the opposite,” said Ryan McCrate, an associate general counsel for the Seattle-based company.

“We designed the Echo devices very intentionally to only listen when spoken to … and also be incredibly conspicuous when it is listening,” McCrate said, referring to the ring of LED lights that flash when Alexa perks up.

McCrate's brief remarks on the panel sounded at times like a promotional pitch touting the lengths the company took to protect consumer privacy. The Echo, he said, was inspired by Star Trek—and Amazon knew that its customers would be familiar with a virtual assistant as a science-fiction concept. But the company, he added, also realized there would be “well-founded” concerns about a product like the Echo.

“From the very beginning, we set about designing both the hardware and the cloud service to address those concerns,” McCrate said. “First, we designed the Echo to only listen when spoken to. And the way we did that was we built what we call wake-word technology, where a customer can choose a wake-word to use to activate the Echo device. And right now they can use 'Alexa,' 'Amazon,' 'Echo' or—in an homage to Star Trek—'computer' to active the Echo device.”

Each Echo device, McCrate said, is installed with software that “does one thing and one thing only, which is look for that wake-word.”

“And it never streams anything to the cloud when it tries to detect the wake-word, it doesn't even store anything locally when it's trying to detect the wake word,” he said.

“So if you don't say the wake-word, nothing is recorded on the device and nothing is streamed to Amazon.”

In the Arkansas case, lawyers for Amazon moved in February to quash a warrant ordering the retail giant to turn over recording and other data stored in the cloud from an Echo owned by James Bates, who is suspected in the slaying of a friend found dead in his hot tub in 2015.

Amazon's lawyers at Davis Wright Tremaine dropped their warrant fight after Bates agreed to hand over the data. Police had found the Echo device in Bates' kitchen during a search of his residence and requested all data recorded by the device in a 48-hour window around the alleged murder.

Asked about Amazon's approach to the warrant, McCrate said that, “as a general matter, we only provide customer information to law enforcement in response to a valid binding legal demand and routinely push back if a demand is overbroad or otherwise inappropriate.”

McCrate said that, because of the First Amendment concerns implicated by consumers' use of Echo devices—whether it be reading a book or listening to music—“the government should be required to meet a heightened burden of demonstrating necessity and relevance” when demanding data

“In this case,” McCrate said, referring to the matter in Arkansas, “the customer of the Echo device has consented.”

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Months after Apple faced off with the FBI over an order to unlock an iPhone connected to the San Bernardino, California, shooting investigation, Amazon.com Inc. was thrust center-stage in its own digital privacy debate when Arkansas prosecutors demanded data from a murder suspect's Echo device.

Amazon initially objected to the demands last year, only to later grant access after the suspect consented to turning over recordings and other data from the popular consumer device. The dustup nonetheless raised questions about when “Alexa,” the Echo device's virtual assistant, is listening—and what data the Echo collecting.

Speaking Thursday at a Consumer Federation of America conference in Washington, an in-house lawyer at Amazon stated flatly: “No, Echo is not spying on you.”

“Quite the opposite,” said Ryan McCrate, an associate general counsel for the Seattle-based company.

“We designed the Echo devices very intentionally to only listen when spoken to … and also be incredibly conspicuous when it is listening,” McCrate said, referring to the ring of LED lights that flash when Alexa perks up.

McCrate's brief remarks on the panel sounded at times like a promotional pitch touting the lengths the company took to protect consumer privacy. The Echo, he said, was inspired by Star Trek—and Amazon knew that its customers would be familiar with a virtual assistant as a science-fiction concept. But the company, he added, also realized there would be “well-founded” concerns about a product like the Echo.

“From the very beginning, we set about designing both the hardware and the cloud service to address those concerns,” McCrate said. “First, we designed the Echo to only listen when spoken to. And the way we did that was we built what we call wake-word technology, where a customer can choose a wake-word to use to activate the Echo device. And right now they can use 'Alexa,' 'Amazon,' 'Echo' or—in an homage to Star Trek—'computer' to active the Echo device.”

Each Echo device, McCrate said, is installed with software that “does one thing and one thing only, which is look for that wake-word.”

“And it never streams anything to the cloud when it tries to detect the wake-word, it doesn't even store anything locally when it's trying to detect the wake word,” he said.

“So if you don't say the wake-word, nothing is recorded on the device and nothing is streamed to Amazon.”

In the Arkansas case, lawyers for Amazon moved in February to quash a warrant ordering the retail giant to turn over recording and other data stored in the cloud from an Echo owned by James Bates, who is suspected in the slaying of a friend found dead in his hot tub in 2015.

Amazon's lawyers at Davis Wright Tremaine dropped their warrant fight after Bates agreed to hand over the data. Police had found the Echo device in Bates' kitchen during a search of his residence and requested all data recorded by the device in a 48-hour window around the alleged murder.

Asked about Amazon's approach to the warrant, McCrate said that, “as a general matter, we only provide customer information to law enforcement in response to a valid binding legal demand and routinely push back if a demand is overbroad or otherwise inappropriate.”

McCrate said that, because of the First Amendment concerns implicated by consumers' use of Echo devices—whether it be reading a book or listening to music—“the government should be required to meet a heightened burden of demonstrating necessity and relevance” when demanding data

“In this case,” McCrate said, referring to the matter in Arkansas, “the customer of the Echo device has consented.”