An Alexa Holdout Wants to Know Who’s Listening
In a statement, Amazon said, “We’ve built multiple layers of privacy protections into Echo including a mute button
that electronically disconnects the microphones, clear visual indicators when voice recordings are being captured and streamed, as well as the ability for customers to see and delete voice recording history for their devices.”
In its own statement, Google said that “all the devices
that come with the Google Assistant built in are designed with privacy in mind.” It added that “Google only stores voice-based queries”after it is manually activated or recognizes “the hotwords ‘O.
Amazon’s terms of use explain that “Alexa streams audio to the cloud,”
but not all the time — only “when you interact.” Then “Amazon processes and retains your Alexa Interactions, such as your voice inputs, music playlists, and your Alexa to-do and shopping lists.”
Generally, I’m a man of few “voice inputs,” but I’m not sure I want any of them sent to Amazon’s servers.
Over at Google, “conversation history with Google Home and the Google Assistant is saved until you choose to delete it,” the company says, adding
that “Google Home records what you say” during interactions and sends that recording to Google’s servers “in order to fulfill your request.” The recordings can be deleted at any time, the company says.
Amazon says that you can delete your records, although it cautions
that “deleting voice recordings may degrade your Alexa experience” because Alexa learns by getting to know your voice inputs.
He doesn’t have one, though he pointed out that we already have this kind of technology “by virtue of Siri.”
“There are a lot of ways to have privacy and security, it just requires an awful lot of human oversight
and management, and that typically doesn’t happen,” he said.