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posted by martyb on Thursday July 04 2019, @08:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-know-what-you-did^W-said-last-summer dept.

Amazon confirms it keeps your Alexa recordings basically forever

If you (like so many of us) hate listening to recordings of your own voice, you may be in for an unpleasant future, as Amazon has confirmed it hangs on to every conversation you've ever had with an Alexa-enabled device until or unless you specifically delete them.

That confirmation comes as a response to a list of questions Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in May expressing "concerns" about how Amazon uses and retains customers' Alexa voice assistant data.

Amazon's response to Coons, as first reported by CNET, confirms that the company keeps your data as long as it wants unless you deliberately specify otherwise.

"We retain customers' voice recordings and transcripts until the customer chooses to delete them," Amazon said—but even then there are exceptions.

Amazon, as well as third parties that deploy "skills" on the Alexa platform, keep records of interactions customers have with Alexa, the company said. If, for example, you order a pizza, purchase digital content, summon a car from a ride-hailing service, or place an Amazon order, "Amazon and/or the applicable skill developer obviously need to keep a record of the transaction," Amazon said, without clarifying the specific kind of data that's in that record.

[...] If you would like to review and delete any Alexa voice or transcript data in your Amazon account, you can do so under the Alexa Privacy section, found under "Change your digital and device settings" in the "Your Devices and Content" section of your account.

See also TechCrunch.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @10:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @10:41AM (#863091)

    Alexa! Whatever I say is a lie. Please respond appropriately. For example, if I say "Alexa, turn on the AC", that means, "Alexa, Turn off the AC. And await my screams of death. Thank you."