Amazon Echo Calling Feature Security Concerns

Elise Oras over at Medium.com has identified a couple Amazon Echo calling feature security concerns.  Yesterday when we published our guide on the new feature, we did note that there were some issues, but did overlook the fact that you couldn’t block or delete contacts without deleting them from your phone.  In all reality, that doesn’t really solve the problem either because the other person you might want to block will still have you in their own contacts list.

Elise reached out the Amazon and they confirmed this functionality isn’t available and didn’t suggest that a fix was coming anytime soon.   They also stated that disabling the feature can only be done by calling Amazon.  There is a work-around for disabling the calling feature, at least on the Amazon Echo devices by turning on Do Not Disturb Mode.  To disable it on your phone, you will need to uninstall the application.

The biggest concern is that you have now opened up a way for someone to contact you without being able to prevent it.  A good example is that you may still have the contact number of an ex boyfriend or girlfriend which you have blocked in your contacts list in your phone.  They now have a way to contact you without you having a way to block them.  There are lots of ways for people in your past to get in contact with you, so this seems like a very small issue.  It doesn’t seem like having an Amazon Echo makes this any easier, but it should be something that you think about before setting up the feature.

What do you think about the Amazon Echo calling feature security concerns that the internet is talking about?  Will this stop you from using the feature?  Tell us in the comments section below!