A worry for many people since virtual assistant technology became a household staple is where the information is stores and what the companies that own these devices are doing with the data they collect. It seems like now one of the questions has been answered by Amazon, the company that owns the iconic Alexa.
The new Amazon Alexa privacy rules
Amazon is making some changes and one of them involves the way that users are going to be able to store their data. Until now, and until March 28 when the policy changers, those who own an Alexa were able to adjust the virtual assistant’s settings to stop voice recordings from being sent to Amazon’s cloud.
This will change shortly on the designated date, as per an email from Amazon sent to the owners. In it, the company explained that the “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” that users had been using to prevent their recordings from being sent to Amazon was being eliminated and that, from now on, all data would automatically be uploaded to the cloud.
The company gave sound reasoning, as they explained this change is part of its effort to “expand Alexa’s capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon’s secure cloud.”
While of course obtaining more data to train its AI models can be a good reason for them to ask customers to choose to send their data in voluntarily, eliminating the option altogether seems controversial and a perfect recipe for many to just disconnect their devices.
Customers seem to agree that the move was ill advised, with many of them already expressing their dissatisfaction with this change to Alexa’s privacy policies. Amazon is an already controversial company for many reasons, and having this be the cherry on top is making many rethink their purchase. Having a tech giant like Amazon listening in to your conversations when there is no accountability or explanation on where the data goes to or who has access to it and for what explicit purpose is not something most users are comfortable with, especially those who had opted out of the feature.
As we have said, this company is quite controversial for many reasons and this is not the first time the are landing in hot water because of something to do with their Alexa technology. In 2023, Amazon was fined $25 million when the news broke about them storing voice recordings of children’s interactions with Alexa devices without parental consent. This was not a very big scandal at the time as many thought that those who have them should have been aware of the risk, but the repercussions were still felt at the company, although now they seem to be walking them back.
Even earlier than this case, in 2019, reports surfaced stating that the company had its employees listen to up to 1,000 audio samples from customers to help train the company’s voice recognition and natural language processing systems.
Amazon has yet to make an official statement regarding the change, but in the email sent to its customers announcing the change, they made a point to emphasize that data security would not be compromised and would be strictly guarded, although they did not clarify how. Despite this reassurance, skepticism remains high among users. Some who had already steered clear of Alexa and Echo over privacy concerns feel even more justified in their decision, while others are now debating whether to disable their devices altogether. In an effort to ease concerns, Amazon has now stated that Alexa voice recordings will be erased after processing, although again we do not know how long that would change or who would have access to the information in the meantime.