By Jim Calloway

Imagine the potential awkwardness when you are advising a client about a serious matter and Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri responds aloud, chiming in about the things you are discussing. Some readers need not imagine! The client may then have concerns about how many electronic devices are listening to their confidential conversations.

But if a fast-talking client has a lot of information to deliver, obtaining the client’s permission to have an AI tool record, transcribe and summarize the conversation may be effective representation. One must make certain that confidential information is handled properly, which means doing some research on the tool you will employ.

Giving microphone access to an app on your phone or having an Amazon Echo in your office to listen to music or podcasts is now a more strategic decision. I recognize these devices are listening for “wake words” to activate them. But many of us have experienced misunderstandings activating the device. Once awakened, some of these devices create recordings.

I am not suggesting you disable microphone access on all these services, although some lawyers have made that decision. But at a minimum, do some spring cleaning and disable microphone access to apps where it is not needed. For apps that rarely need microphone access, it is also advisable to consider leaving it off by default and enabling access in Settings when needed.

I Turn Off Microphone Access to Apps on My Phone to Stop Them from Listening and You Can Too is a short post outlining using settings on either iPhone or Android to review microphone access permissions and turn some off. Having an Amazon Echo listening is more problematic in my opinion as it is set up to respond to commands shouted across a room. Stop Alexa From Listening: A Detailed Guide for Echo Users reminds us that pressing the Echo’s microphone button will immediately stop it from listening. The light flashes red when disabled. The post also discusses modifying the settings, so Echo recordings are automatically and quickly deleted.