Amazon Alexa device recorded couple's conversation and sent it to a random contact

Amazon's voice-controlled speaker Alexa recorded a couple's private conversation and sent it to a random person on their contacts list.

A woman from Portland, Oregon, told ABC affiliate station KIRO7 she got a call from her husband's employee telling her to "unplug your Alexa devices right now" after he received the audio files.

"He proceeded to tell us that he had received audio files of recordings from inside our house," said the woman, named only as Danielle.

"At first, my husband was, like, 'no you didn't!' And the [recipient] said, 'You sat there talking about hardwood floors.' And we said, 'oh gosh, you really did hear us.'"

Danielle, whose home is fitted with Alexa devices in every room, immediately called Amazon and an engineer was sent round to investigate.

A spokeswoman for Amazon explained: "Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like 'Alexa.'

"Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a 'send message' request.

"At which point, Alexa said out loud 'To whom?'

"At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customers contact list.

"Alexa then asked out loud, '[contact name], right?' Alexa then interpreted background conversation as 'right'.

"As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely."

The couple said they did not hear any spoken warning.