Sometimes a company has personal data you never gave them yourself, thanks to the wonder of the one-click “add my contacts” feature of so many social media and other services.
Many of these devices are always on, waiting for a voice command. It’s well established too that they can pick up random, and sometimes quite personal or intimate, background conversation. And while an Amazon speaker might be an optional purchase – there are still plenty of plain old analogue speakers that aren’t creepily surveilling your conversations, awaiting a trigger word – just try to buy a TV or a car that isn’t “smart”. It’s impossible, unless you go for an old, used model.
Yet the kits are offered under the guise that you are learning about your ancestry or checking how Celtic or Viking or Neanderthal you are.