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.
Other types of Alexa requests, such as setting an alarm, reminder, or calendar event, also leave data, Amazon said. "Customers would not want or expect deletion of the voice recording to delete the underlying data or prevent Alexa from performing the requested task."
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.
Coons said in a statement that he appreciated Amazon's response, but the senator found it left unclear "the extent to which this data is shared with third parties, and how those third parties use and control that information."
Amazon has found itself in regulators' and lawmakers sights frequently this year, along with several of its other "Big Tech" counterparts. The company admitted in April that human employees listened to a "small sample" of Alexa audio recordings to transcribe and annotate to help improve the software, one of several reports that led Coons to issue his request for information to Amazon.
The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, which between them handle competition and antitrust matters, reportedly decided on a divide-and-conquer approach to an investigation in June. According to reports at the time, the FTC would take the lead on investigations into Amazon and Facebook, and the DOJ would look into Apple and Google.
A day later, the House Judiciary Committee announced a bipartisan investigation into competition regulation and business behavior in digital markets, including Amazon.
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