Is Alexa always listening? How to protect your data from Amazon

Amazon has officially sold over 500 million Alexa-enabled devices globally, including more than 71 million Amazon smart speakers in the United States alone.

If you’re one of the millions with an Alexa in your home, or are thinking about joining them, it’s worth knowing how much data Alexa collects, and what Amazon does with that information. Because it’s a lot. 

What is Alexa?

Alexa is the name of Amazon’s virtual assistant. It’s most associated with the Amazon Echo or Dot smart speakers, but Amazon sells a number of Alexa-enabled devices including thermostats, televisions and even bicycle helmets. These voice-activated devices allow you to do web searches, make purchases, stream music, ask about the weather or call up a friend by using the prompt “Hey Alexa”.

Is Alexa always listening?

Yes, Alexa is an always-on listening device. It isn’t always recording every word you say near it, but it is listening for a wake word (usually “Alexa”, but you can pick your own). When it hears the wake word, Alexa then starts recording your voice.

Smart speakers can wake up on accident when they hear something that sounds like its assigned wake word. Some of Alexa’s false wake words for “Alexa” have included “unacceptable,” and “I messed up”.

With an Alexa in your house, it’s collecting a lot of information about you.

What data does Alexa collect? 

Alexa collects and keeps your voice recordings, while your Amazon account gathers a lot of other personal info. That can include your geolocation, contacts and everything you do on an Amazon product such as your Kindle, Prime or Ring cameras. It can also collect your children’s information. 

Overall, Amazon collects a lot of your data, allows other third parties to collect your data, and grants companies access to your data on a pretty massive scale. Let’s break it down. 

1. Alexa collects and stores your voice recordings.

Anytime you talk to Alexa, Amazon records what you say and sends the recording of your voice to its servers. Amazon then processes your recording, turning into a text transcript,  and prompts Alexa to respond accordingly.

That mostly makes sense for how Alexa works. What makes less sense is that Amazon retains both your voice recording and the text transcript of your Alexa interactions – indefinitely. Keeping your data forever isn’t necessary for Alexa to work – it has all the same features even if you set it to delete your recordings every 3 months. In recent years the company has fought legislation that would require it to notify customers that it keeps voice recordings, or get explicit consent to do so.

You can, thankfully, ask Amazon to delete your recordings and transcripts.

2. Alexa collects and stores the content of what you say to Alexa.

Amazon knows everything you say to Alexa, and keeps that data indefinitely – which can be a lot of information. 

If you use Alexa for voice-activated shopping, it knows what you’re buying and when. Text a friend using Alexa, Amazon knows the content of your message, and also has access to your contacts. Ask Alexa to play music, it knows what genres you like, maybe what you’re up to (if you request your “workout” playlist) and can probably take a good guess at what mood you’re in (if you’re listening to a sad song on repeat). Ask it to turn your bedroom lights off, it knows when you’re going to bed. Ask it to verify the timing of your doctor’s appointment, odds are you’ve given access to your calendar. Ask it for recipes to help you lose weight, find a divorce lawyer, or for side effects of a prescription, and at the end of the day, Amazon can learn a lot. And it will hold onto that information until you explicitly tell it to delete it.

The weird thing here – besides the fact Amazon wants to hold onto this info forever – is that if you’re using an Alexa Skill (Amazon’s version of an app), it’s very possible that the third-party developer of that Skill is also receiving text transcripts of your Alexa conversations (and possibly other data).

Also extremely worth knowing: even if you request Amazon delete all your text transcripts, that does not delete those that third-party Skills developers have. You have to go to each one and request deletion one at a time.

3. Alexa collects and stores your child’s voice recordings (and other data, including location).

If you have children and an Alexa in your home, it’s almost certain that Amazon is recording your child.

If you use an Alexa product meant for children under 13 (such as the Echo Dot Kids Edition or an Amazon Kids profile), you have to consent to Amazon collecting data about your child as a part of using all of that service’s features. This can include info such as your child’s voice recordings, as well as location, birthdate, photos and contact information.

Alternatively if you have an Alexa in your home and use it without a kid’s account, Amazon is still likely gathering your child’s voice recordings, because it gathers everyone’s voice data when they use – or are near someone using – Alexa. 

Plus if your child uses an Alexa Skill, the third-party developer may receive full text transcripts of your child’s interactions with the Skill.

All of that raises red flags. Tech that talks with kids can open the door to excessive data collection. A child may come to view Alexa or a Skill that, say, brings a stuffed toy to life, as a friend and share more personal details, not realizing it’s a company on the other side that’s doing the listening and talking.

Then there’s the fact recently Amazon has had a bit of a bumpy track record with children’s privacy. In 2023, the FTC found that Amazon had ignored parent’s requests to delete their child’s data, and instead kept children’s’ voice recordings and location data for years.

4. Amazon collects all kinds of other personal information.

If you use Alexa, Prime, Kindle or other Amazon service, Amazon is using your profile to collect data about you. That can include your credit card info, precise geolocation, what and when you’re streaming, your search history, your photos, contacts, age, and may infer lots of other info, such as your religion (if you listen to the Quran on audiobook), your family status (if you create a wedding or baby registry, or set up a child’s profile), or your gender or race (if you participate in a survey from a 3rd party that works with Amazon, it can get those results too).

Amazon also gets user data from the targeted advertising industry. Amazon may collect data about what you do on other websites using cookies and other tracking technologies. It can also receive data such as demographic information from other sites and companies. 

Then there’s Ring cameras which collect video and audio recordings and live streams. Amazon can get information about you from Facebook, too, if you link your Ring camera account to your social media account so you can share videos.

Then there’s also the company’s foray into becoming a health provider with Amazon Clinic and One Medical that you can link to your Prime membership. (Which raises too many privacy questions for us to get into here.)

What does Alexa and Amazon do with my data?

There are two main things.

• Advertising. Amazon is all about selling you stuff – as much stuff as possible as fast as possible. Amazon allows advertisers to use your data to target you with ads. The company says it doesn’t sell your data to third parties, but companies can pay to access your data for marketing, serving you ads on both Amazon’s own services – like the content and products the recommendation algorithms show you – and to target you with ads on non-Amazon websites across the web. As we mentioned above, Amazon may receive information including what websites you view or your demographic information from these third party sites and companies, and what ads you’ve clicked on and when, all so it can serve you even more advertising.
• Training AI.  Amazon keeps your recordings indefinitely in order to “improve Alexa” – to keep training the language model that makes Alexa go. (Amazon is preparing to announce a new iteration of Alexa that will be “even more intuitive, intelligent and useful”, built largely from its cache of Alexa recordings.) While a better product sounds nice, pursuing “smarter” AI isn’t a good reason to violate consumers’ expectations for what’s happening with their data, or continue data practices that can put people’s information in harm’s way. As the FTC put it in its order prohibiting Amazon from keeping children’s’ recordings, “machine learning is no excuse to break the law.”

Should I be worried about my Amazon having my data?

It all depends on what you’re comfortable with. We’d argue there’s a couple reasons to be concerned. 

1. Amazon holds onto sensitive information – like your voice recordings – indefinitely, raising security risks for you. Anytime companies collect and keep personal data about us, the risks for that data being misused or exposed in a breach or a hack rises.  Amazon has struggled with data leaks, and with employees and contractors (of which there are thousands) having access to private data. Voice data in particular is super sensitive. It’s possible just a few minutes of audio can create a voice clone capable of saying anything a bad actor wants, like approving bank transfers from your account, or impersonating a child in a kidnapping scam.
2. Third parties can use Alexa to collect data about you for themselves. Alexa Skills, like smartphone apps, can collect your data. Third-party companies behind Skills don’t receive your voice recordings (according to Amazon), but they can get your text transcripts, and when you download them can request permissions to collect sensitive data. While Amazon has policies in place that allegedly bar Skills that violate privacy, research has shown it’s too easy for just about anyone to upload an app to the Skills store that breaks the rules. Some Skills even illegally collect data about kids. Many also operate without any transparency, failing to provide even a basic privacy policy explaining what data they collect and why. There’s also the unfortunate detail we mentioned earlier that when you request Amazon delete your Alexa data, that will not delete the data third party Skills developers have gathered about you.

How to keep your data safe from Alexa

If you have an Alexa, the good news is Amazon does give you some tools to help minimize data collection. Let’s walk through the options here.

How to delete your Alexa data

The #1 thing you can do to boost your privacy and security is deleting your existing voice data and text transcripts. There are a couple ways to do this.

Automatically delete your Alexa voice recordings

According to Amazon, deleting your voice recordings will also delete your text transcripts, making this the most efficient way to take more control of your data.

In the app

1. Open the Alexa app and go to the More tab on the bottom of the screen. 
2. Click on Settings.
3. Select Alexa Privacy.
4. Scroll down and select Manage Your Alexa Data.
5. Under Voice Recordings select Choose how long to save recordings.
6. Here you can choose how long recordings are saved in the cloud. We recommend selecting Don’t Save Recordings (but you can also select 3 months or 1 year). Then confirm your selection. This will both delete your past voice history, and stop Alexa from saving your recordings in the future.

On a desktop

1. Login to your Amazon account and visit this portal.
2. Under Voice Recordings, find Choose how long to save recordings and click the menu arrow.
3. Select Don’t save recordings and hit Confirm. This will both delete your past voice history, and stop Alexa from saving your recordings in the future.

Tell Alexa to delete what you just said

You can set Alexa to delete what you’ve said with a voice command, but you need to activate this feature. (It’d be better if Amazon made that possible without jumping through extra hoops. But we digress.) 

In the app

1. Open the Alexa app and go to the More tab on the bottom of the screen.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Select Alexa Privacy.
4. Scroll down and select Manage Your Alexa Data.
5. Turn on Enable deletion by voice.
6. From there, you can tell Alexa “delete what I just said” or “delete my entire voice history” to delete your voice recordings.

On a desktop

1. Login to your Amazon account and visit this portal.
2. Under Voice Recordings, toggle the Enable deletion by voice feature on.
3. Click Confirm.
4. From there, you can tell Alexa “delete what I just said” or “delete my entire voice history” to delete your voice recordings.

For max protection, we recommend setting Alexa to delete your recordings automatically as opposed to having to continually ask it.

Delete just your past Alexa voice recordings

If you don’t want Alexa to automatically delete your recordings in the future, you can still go delete some or all of your past voice history.

In the app

1. Open the Alexa app and go to the More tab on the bottom of the screen.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Select Alexa Privacy.
4. Select Review Voice History.
5. From here you can filter your recordings by date, voice ID (who’s speaking, if you have this feature turned on), or by device. This will allow you to see your recordings.
6. Make your selections, then click Delete all of my recordings.

On a desktop

1. Login to your Amazon account and visit this webpage.
2. Here you can filter your recordings by date, voice ID (who’s speaking, if you have this feature turned on), or by device. This will allow you to see your recordings. It may be more than just Alexa – if you use a Fire TV stick and use the voice commands feature to search for certain shows, for example, those recordings will also show up here.
3. Make your selections, then click Delete all of my recordings.

Note that after deleting your data through any of these mechanisms, Amazon may require you to authenticate your request in your email inbox or by other means.  In 2022, Amazon received 3,200,772 data deletion requests, and fulfilled just 51% of them. According to the company, this was in part because people did not finish verifying the request.

How to stop human reviewers from being able to review your voice data

Amazon has human reviewers who can access your voice recordings as a part of training the Alexa algorithm. You can opt-out of this use of your data.

In the app

1. Open the Alexa app and go to the More tab on the bottom of the screen.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Select Alexa Privacy.
4. Scroll down and select Manage Your Alexa Data.
5. Find Help improve Alexa.
6. Find Use of voice recordings and toggle that setting off, and confirm your selection.

On a desktop

1. Login to your Amazon account and visit this portal.
2. Scroll down to Help Improve Alexa.
3. Find Use of voice recordings and toggle that setting off.
4. Turn off in the confirmation pop-up.

How to stop Alexa Skills from collecting data

You can take stock of what data Skills are collecting on you and revoke permissions. We highly recommend limiting as many Skills gathering as much of your data as possible. These third parties are likely going to be riskier with your data and a lot less under Amazon’s control.

In the app

1. Open the Alexa app and go to the More tab on the bottom of the screen.
2. Click Settings.
3. Click Alexa Privacy.
4. Scroll down and select Manage Skills and Ad Preferences.
5. Expand the menu under each data type to see what Skills have access to what data.
6. Toggle the permissions off for each, and click Confirm on the pop-up.

On a desktop

1. Login to your Amazon account and visit this portal.
2. Expand the menu under each data type to see what Skills have access to what data.
3. Toggle the permissions off for each, and click Confirm on the pop-up.

How to stop Alexa from sharing your data with advertisers

In the app

1. Open the Alexa app and go to the More tab on the bottom of the screen.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Select Alexa Privacy.
4. Scroll down and select Manage Your Alexa Data.
5. Scroll down the page and find Interest-Based Ads from Amazon on Alexa and toggle the menu button to turn this data sharing off.
6. Confirm your selection in the pop-up.

On a desktop

1. Login to your Amazon account and visit this portal.
2. Scroll down to Interest-Based Ads from Amazon on Alexa and toggle the menu button to turn this data sharing off.
3. Click Turn off in the confirmation pop-up.

How to stop Alexa Skills from selling your data to advertisers

In the app

1. Open the Alexa app and go to the More tab on the bottom of the screen.
2. Click Settings.
3. Click Alexa Privacy.
4. Scroll down and select Manage Skills and Ad Preferences.
5. Scroll down to the section called Receive Interest-based Ads from Third-Party Skills on Alexa.
6. Toggle this setting off and hit Confirm.

On a desktop

1. Login to your Amazon account and visit this portal.
2. Scroll down to Interest-Based Ads from Third Parties.
3. Toggle the menu off, and click Turn off on the pop-up.