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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: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 04 2019, @08:36AM (3 children)
Just a few sentences, detailing exactly what the consumer can "opt in" to, and what he can "opt out" of. I want the one that says, "absolute minimal logging".
Of course, I'm not kidding anyone, including myself. I'll never have an Alexa in my home, or a Siri, or any other "smart" marketing crap.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Informative) by SpockLogic on Thursday July 04 2019, @11:31AM
This is the only safe position to take.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @11:34AM (1 child)
There's no point in a simple contract if the laws governing them are >100k lines. When the contact says you're letting Amazon record you it doesn't say in one state the recordings are restricted to local servers and that specific company unless a real contract with copyright wavers and lawyers were involved while in another it means Amazon owns it and has the right to replicate, modify and sell it.
Fact of the matter is, it's entirely disingenuous to even remotely suggest a specific reform in this field can help. It takes team of corporate lawyers to evaluate contracts. Trials lasts years and judges take years to specialize in their respective fields. The whole state and federal law is in dire need of a reform. And the lawyers that understand the problem are making a lot of money from keeping things the way they are so they're not going to talk about it openly.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday July 04 2019, @03:31PM
You do realize that the majority of the members of the U.S. House and Senate as well as all the State Legislatures are lawyers. So yeah the likelihood reform is null.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @10:41AM
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."
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday July 04 2019, @12:35PM (3 children)
Isn’t a large data base of the sound of your voice required to do the necessary parsing?
If you choose to delete everything you can, does performance suffer?
I don’t know because I won’t allow one of these things in the house either.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by captain normal on Thursday July 04 2019, @03:38PM (2 children)
If you have either an iPhone or an Android phone, you already have such a device going wherever you go. Siri or Google Assistant are always listening.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday July 04 2019, @04:09PM (1 child)
I actually don’t have either one of those. I have a 10+ year old LG cellphone with a slide out raspberry style keyboard (and color display!) for texting. It’s dirt cheap, small and reliable. I get enough screen time around the house (or when I used to be in an office), and don’t need the other functions that a modern smartphone has to offer. If something needs to be Googled while I’m away, I can always ask the person I’m talking to.
I do live with people who carry them, though, but I doubt the system has enough juice to identify me as the voice on someone else’s smartphone. Yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @05:07PM
No google shit here either. Especially not voice "assistants".
If they want to record me they'll have to bug me the old fashioned way: turning on the mic through baseband backdoors.
(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
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 04 2019, @04:37PM (1 child)
Spying is one thing. Pretty obvious drawback to all of these self-imposed bugs.
Now that they're keeping the data. How long until they can make "you" say anything they want.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mhajicek on Thursday July 04 2019, @07:38PM
They already can. And make matching video to boot.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek