Technically speaking the Amazon Echo does not listen to your conversations and does not transmit them back to headquarters.
The Echo has a low power chip-mode which is able to do "basic" voice recognition and wake the device when the correct phase is spoken.
So the chips itself is interpreting everything you say looking for the correct wake-up phase, but the wrong ones aren't recorded, and most of the device's logic in in idle/sleep/hibernation.
Now, that being said, when the device is awoken anything you ask it IS transmitted back to Amazon HQ. For example "ok Alexa, what is the weather today in New York," the "ok Alexa" won't be transmitted (that just wakes the devices) but the "what is the weather in New York" is transmitted.
Most of these articles focus on the Amazon Echo "always listening" and while that is technically true, there is no known privacy implications to it (since it isn't recorded/transmitted).
The Echo has a low power chip-mode which is able to do "basic" voice recognition and wake the device when the correct phase is spoken.
So the chips itself is interpreting everything you say looking for the correct wake-up phase, but the wrong ones aren't recorded, and most of the device's logic in in idle/sleep/hibernation.
Now, that being said, when the device is awoken anything you ask it IS transmitted back to Amazon HQ. For example "ok Alexa, what is the weather today in New York," the "ok Alexa" won't be transmitted (that just wakes the devices) but the "what is the weather in New York" is transmitted.
Most of these articles focus on the Amazon Echo "always listening" and while that is technically true, there is no known privacy implications to it (since it isn't recorded/transmitted).