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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.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday July 04 2019, @01:46PM (4 children)
And yet every drooling consumertard on the planet wants one in their home and thinks everyone else should have one.
Need to find another planet.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by SDRefugee on Thursday July 04 2019, @03:01PM (3 children)
My wife asked me if I wanted one of these things.. I sat her down and edu-macated her right then and there.. Like so many others, she had NO idea how intrusive these were. I asked her had she read the novel "1984" in school? and if so, did she recall the "telescreen" that was in everyone's house? I explained that the Alexa etc units were the audio equivalent of a 1984 telescreen, and there would NEVER be any of these devices in my house.
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @07:39PM (2 children)
And then she edu-macated you and explained that it was her house?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 05 2019, @01:06AM
Exactly, digital assistant Alex is probably more useful to house chores than beer slugging hubby!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 05 2019, @09:44AM