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How To Stop Amazon From Listening To Your Alexa Recordings (tomsguide.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the cease-and-desist dept.

Yesterday, Bloomberg dropped a bombshell report revealing that Amazon employs thousands of people around the world to listen to voice recordings captured in Echo owners' homes and offices, and uses them to improve its Alexa digital assistant. "The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa's understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands," the report says. "A screenshot reviewed by Bloomberg shows that the recordings sent to the Alexa auditors don't provide a user's full name and address but are associated with an account number, as well as the user's first name and the device's serial number."

While many have assumed that this was already happening behind the scenes, it may still come as a surprise to see proof of the practice. Thankfully, there is a way to stop Amazon from listening to your Alexa recordings. Tom's Guide explains: 1. In the Alexa app, access Settings. You'll find this button at the bottom of the menu in the top left corner of the home screen.
2. Click on Alexa Account. This should be at the top of the page.
3. Select Alexa Privacy. You'll be taken to Amazon's external Alexa privacy page. You can review a number of things here, including our voice history, skill permissions, and other data settings.
4. Tap "Manage How Your Data Improves Alexa."
5. Toggle "Help Develop New Features" and "Use Messages to Improve Transcriptions" to Off. Alexa will no longer learn and improve from your responses, but your recordings will be safe and sound.

14 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. One weird trick to stop Amazon from spying on you: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Take a sledgehammer.
    2. Smash that fucking surveillance device.
    3. Stop buying or using any surveillance devices in the future.

  2. Step 0 by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Step 0. Don't buy an Alexa and you won't have this problem.

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    1. Re:Step 0 by Obfuscant · · Score: 3, Interesting
      You bought an Amazon-branded device intended to deal with Amazon content and you are surprised that it tries to communicate with Amazon on a regular basis? This is how it checks for new content, for one thing. That's the same reason why the Nook app starts services that check with B&N every so often. It's functionality that most people want, because most people want to know when new content is available without having to run the app every hour or day or even week. It's why good email clients have a poll option, too.

      It's a shame that people here are so devoid of context that they think the correct answer to the question is to not have an Alexa device at all. That's the OBVIOUS answer, which means maybe they aren't getting the actual question. The actual question is not "how to stop Amazon from listening to your recordings", it is "how to stop Amazon from listening to your recordings without losing the functionality that the user paid for."

      Would we like a car analogy? Answering the question "how do I keep my car from pulling to the left when I apply the brakes" with "don't apply the brakes", "don't drive that car", or "don't own a car" is ridiculous. The correct answer is "have your brake system checked". It should be obvious that the person asking such a question doesn't want to lose the functionality of having and using a car, but wants to know how to solve a specific problem while using it.

      Of course, we now have more than 50% of the responses parroting the "don't own one" or similar variants, which is useless in context. The most useless ones are those whose answers apply to devices that have already been bought and paid for, as if giving Amazon the money in exchange for no service was ok. "Buy one, hit it with a sledgehammer". (Of course the "buy one" part is implicit, since you can't do the latter without the former.)

    2. Re: Step 0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Accidentally on purpose

  3. Easy! by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't use Alexa.

    I flatly refuse to have a device in my home that is connected to the internet and that, by design, monitors the sound around it. No f**king way.

    ...laura

    1. Re:Easy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      So I take it you leave your cellphone outside

    2. Re:Easy! by rogoshen1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sadly it's going to get harder and harder to avoid this kind of shit.

      As long as corps view any bit of data they don't hoover up and sell as "Money left on the table" the encroachment will continue.

      The big one will be cars. Dear god, help us.

  4. Don't buy a listening device for your home? by gweihir · · Score: 2

    I mean, how obvious does it have to get?

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  5. This better get a hundred "don't buy it" comments. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How daft does one have to be to think a config option is an acceptable fix?

  6. I talked my sister-in-law into returning hers by stevegee58 · · Score: 2

    Told her it was nothing but a potential snooping device of little marginal value.

  7. Re:Step 0: Become a person! by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

    Then they're dumb and they'll get what they deserve.
    By the way what happens when 'some stranger' is a pedophile who managed to hack into things and is listening to your kids? What then?
    Or how about if it's criminals who want to listen for when you're not home, so they can rob you blind?
    Or how about if it's some shitty government agency that thinks it should have the right to listen in on whatever they choose, and have machines sift it for trigger words? You find you're on the no-fly list for no valid reason, and are being investigated for sedition, or terrorism, or child porn, or whatever, because of something out-of-context your so-called 'voice assistant' happened to record. What then?
    There's any number of reasons why your personal privacy in your own home should be sacred, and if someone ignores that then they're dumb.

  8. Amazon Audible geostalks even with GPS off by fluke11 · · Score: 2
    Amazon Audible says that it provides as part of it's conditions of use/policies the Amazon Privacy Notice. Then in that document they the mobile app may use the user's location but that "most mobile devices provide users with the ability to disable location services." This privacy policy is misleading because the instructions (and instructions from Android device manufacturers) is to turn the GPS service off.

    Even with the GPS turned off Audible still sends the network router MAC address and SSID to kochava.com which is resolved to the user's location. Kochava admits to using their "IdentityLink" tracking in the Audible app. Kochava also promotes the fact their reports include geolocation.

    It should also be noted that users of Audible are locked into using this app on Android because the content is provided in an obfuscated format. So not only does the advice of the privacy policy to turn off location services not work, using alternatives apps are also not a supported option under Audible's terms of use.

    I have tried a couple times to get in touch with Audible/Amazon support. They refused to admit to the use of Kochava embedded in Audible or that any location tracking was continuing to take place. It was implied that the activity of Audible must be due to a different app installed. And while they claimed an Audible developer would get in touch with me, it has been several months with no follow-up.

    Overall, I get the feeling that customer privacy really is not a priority for Amazon and being misleading about the lack of privacy they provide is just part of the business model.

  9. Re:One weird trick to stop Amazon from spying on y by Highdude702 · · Score: 2

    My step 1 involved never buying a stupid listening device and then wondering why a company is spying on me. IJS

  10. Re:Step 0: Become a person! by currently_awake · · Score: 2

    You think the NSA built all those massive server farms to record meta-data? They could do that with a single blade server. They are recording everything. Can't actually analyze it, not enough people. But rest assured, within hours of the next 9/11 attack they will have all the pieces of who the suicide bombers were and where they used to live and work.