'Mind your own business, Alexa!' How to keep secrets from your voice assistant

Call centre workers who check how helpful our voice assistants are say they hear private conversations and couples having sex. Here's how to avoid sharing your private life

Walls have ears; you never know who might be listening. Except, increasingly, you do. Call-centre workers for companies such as Apple, Amazon and Google are hired to check recordings made by voice assistants including Alexa and Siri for accuracy and helpfulness.

The disembodied computer that lives in a cylinder in the corner of your kitchen is actually piping a random sample of your requests to humans in Cork, Berlin, Barcelona and elsewhere around the world. But if you're shocked, spare a thought for the poor workers themselves.