“Big Sister” Is Listening: How to Delete Alexa’s Recordings of Your Private Conversations
George Orwell’s fictitious Big Brother may not truly be watching you…
…but Amazon’s very real Alexa is definitely listening to you. All the time. And recording everything she hears you say.
Kinda creepy when you think about it.
Even worse? A Portland woman claims that the Echo virtual assistant took things a step further, recording a private conversation between her and her husband – and then sending the recording to one of the husband’s employees.
Kinda extremely creepy.
While an Amazon spokesperson explained the incident away as an innocent series of voice recognition mistakes, news like this makes it clear that you need to protect yourself if you use voice recognition technology in your home.
What is Alexa listening to – and recording? And how can you erase her “memories” of your conversations? It’s pretty simple if you have the Alexa app:
- Open your Alexa app and click “Settings.”
- Scroll down and select “History.” You’ll see of all your voice interactions listed.
- From this list, you can review Alexa recordings. Be sure to listen to those with “Text not available.”
- From there, you can select any recordings you’d like to delete by choosing “Delete Voice Recordings.”
If you don’t want to use the Alexa app, here are the steps to delete all of your interactions, using the Amazon website:
- Navigate to the Amazon website, and then go to “Manage Your Content and Devices.”
- Select the “Your Devices” tab.
- From the list of devices registered to your Amazon account, select your Alexa device.
- Select “Manage voice recordings.”
- Select “Delete.”
“Alexa, create a new reminder.”
Voice recognition technology is amazing, but it’s far from perfect. If you want the convenience this tech offers, understand that it comes with risks – and schedule regular reminders to delete your virtual assistant’s recordings of your conversations.
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Posted by Exact Staff
