Amazon Alexa Keeps Your Personal Info Definitely, And Shares It

You may or may not know this, but there are privacy issues with Amazon and its voice assistant Alexa. Even after the company answered questions from a US senator about how it keeps voice transcripts and data, the lawmaker is still concerned about its privacy practices.

In May, Delaware Democrat Sen. Chris Coons wrote to Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, asking the executive to answer about how long Alexa kept transcripts and voice recordings, and what the company used the data for. The letter came after CNET reported that the company kept transcripts of users’ interactions with the voice assistant, even after they deleted the recordings.

While the deadline was June 30, Amazon sent answers on June 28. In the letter, Brian Huseman – the company’s VP of public policy, says that Amazon retains voice recordings and transcripts for good, and it only deletes them if users manually remove them.

It was also noted by Huseman that the company was making an effort to make sure the transcripts don't remain in any other storage system of Alexa. However, Amazon still doesn’t remove some conversations with the voice assistant, even when users have deleted them, according to the letter.

Privacy concerns have gone beyond voice assistants, not just with using smart tech to look for household items. And tech firms don’t always tell you everything about their data collection. Coons stated that people deserve to have a thorough understanding of how tech companies are using their personal data. He pledged to keep working with both companies and consumers to figure out the best way to secure user information.

Amazon referred to Coons’ letter when reached for comment.

Amazon noted in its response to Coons that, for requests involving transactions like hailing rideshare or ordering a pizza, the company and the skill’s developers can retain those transactions. It means they keep a record of almost every purchase you make through Alexa. Huseman added that other requests are saved too and that’s the feature people wanted.

The letter also said that people won't want or expect the removal of voice recording would wipe out important data or stop the assistant from doing tasks.

The feature, dubbed “Remember,” raised privacy concerns among advocacy groups, who discovered that it only removed the data stored if users contacted Amazon’s customer service to specifically require complete removal of their profiles. The company said it’s fixed the problem, calling it a bug.

Coons didn’t buy the answers, he said:

According to Amazon, the transcripts are used for training Alexa and for users to know what the voice assistant thought it heard for voice commands. And the transcripts are associated with all users’ accounts.