Companies like Amazon and Google who have created smart devices like Alexa and Google Assistant speakers have long asserted that they do not listen in on your conversations, but what about keeping a record of them? While we can’t speak for Google, it seems that as far as Amazon is concerned, it turns out the company does.This was revealed by Sen. Chris Coons who a couple of months ago sent a letter to Amazon asking for answers on Alexa and whether or not they keep voice recordings of its users. In a response to the letter, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman confirmed that they do keep your voice recordings and also transcriptions of your conversations with Alexa, at least only until they are deleted by users.
In response, Coons said in a statement, “Amazon’s response leaves open the possibility that transcripts of user voice interactions with Alexa are not deleted from all of Amazon’s servers, even after a user has deleted a recording of his or her voice. What’s more, the extent to which this data is shared with third parties, and how those third parties use and control that information, is still unclear.”
While there is no doubt a lot of functionality and convenience that comes with such smart speaker systems, perhaps you might want to think twice before using it, at least if you don’t want to have your conversations recorded.
Filed in . Read more about Alexa, Amazon and Privacy. Source: cnet