In the News
Smart devices are all the rage in consumer homes, but they may be finding a new home in hospitality residences as well. In Alexa for hotels lets guests order room service, control in-room smart devices, Valentina Palladino at Ars Techinica discusses Amazon’s new Alexa Hospitality, a specially designed Alexa built for hospitality occupancies. Palladino states that this new Alexa will allow guests to order room service and provide other travel functions as well as synch their own Amazon accounts with all user data being deleted each day. It is important to note that all Alexa devices have a mute option and many hospitality locations will remove the device if a guest is strongly opposed to one during their stay.
Our Take
These new hospitality versions of smart devices may make your stay at a hotel or vacation rental easier and less stressful. Traveling often requires lots of research and preparation and having a smart device where you are staying may help to reduce additional travel efforts and make you feel more at home. Although the necessary privacy precautions seem to be taken by Amazon, there is always the risk of security breaches or malfunctions where your private conversations and voice requests may be leaked. Refraining from discussing sensitive information when near personal assistants like Amazon Alexa is a good habit to practice whether in your home or in a hospitality setting.
Recommendations
So how can you protect your privacy when traveling to a location that utilizes IoT products?
- Utilize security/privacy settings on smart devices and turn them off when they are not in use
- Understand the risks of putting your personal information into the world, and only share what you have to
- Understand the legal rights and practices of companies that store your data
- Stay up to date on news regarding recent data breaches and news to see if you may have been affected