Back in 2021, Disney announced the addition of Alexa devices to the Disney World resorts. “Hey, Disney” is a collaboration between Amazon and Disney where an Amazon Echo type device with Mickey Ears are put in guest hotel rooms. However, we just uncovered some scary information regarding these devices.
The “Hey, Disney” Alexa devices can be extremely helpful. They give guests easy access to the weather, timers, alarms, info about the Disney World Parks, and much more using Amazon Alexa’s technology. What’s cool is it offers cameo voices from more than 25 Disney characters. This is an add-on that guests can get during their stay at select Disney World resorts.
The Disney Alexa devices have been in hotel rooms for just over a week now and have mixed reactions. We will focus on the negative comments. Many guests have been complaining and concerned about this device listening to their conversations and watching them. We decided to dig into this further and what we found scared us more than it comforted us.
Can Disney Resort Alexa Devices listen to your conversations? The answer is yes. We reached out to a top cybersecurity expert to investigate these Disney Alexa devices from a digital security and safety standpoint. According to our expert, these devices not only listen to guest conversations, but also can record the guests through a tiny camera that is barely visible to the naked eye.
To investigate, they stayed in a Disney room with one of the devices and explored all of the functions and capabilities by connecting it to their computer and using a program to diagnose its features. What doesn’t come as much of a surprise is that the Disney Alexa devices listen to guest conversations. What the cybersecurity expert found is when it hears voices, it starts recording.
Our expert doesn’t know where the recording goes, however, they suspect Disney runs it through an AI program that picks up key words surrounding the Walt Disney Company and their theme parks. The program can then provide Disney with a summary of what guests are talking about in their rooms so they can make future changes for the better. Our cybersecurity expert reassured us that it’s extremely unlikely a human ever will listen to these conversations given the vast number of recordings they pick up in a day.
The scariest part however is that the Disney Alexa devices can video record people in their room. Our source located a tiny camera, the size of a pin needle, on the front of the device. They found a spot in the code for video recordings while diagnosing the features. However, they noted that while there is a camera and code in there for recordings, their device’s camera had not recorded anything during their stay.
This means that in theory Disney could video record guests in their room. Our cybersecurity expert said that though the capability is there, it’s unlikely Disney will ever do that. They said if Disney gets caught filming people in their room through one of these devices, they would be sued into the ground and it would destroy the company. It begs the question why they would include cameras in these custom devices in the first place.
It’s extremely scary knowing that Disney records voices in their resort rooms and could record video as well if they wanted to. We will for sure not be using a Disney Alexa device when we stay on property. What do you think of the new Disney Amazon Alexa devices? Will you use one in your room?
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