Amazon gives users access to all of Alexa’s recordings as there has been a lot of concern around the subject
The company strongly insists that the Echo speakers only listen in and record after users use the wake word, which is usually “Alexa,” but it may not be exactly true. Last week, a woman from Portland was shocked to discover that a recording of hers was automatically sent to a person in her contact list.
As a consequence, Amazon has started looking into what happened in order to prevent similar situations in the future.
To find the recordings, user simply need to open the application, click the menu on the left side, click Settings and scroll down to History. This is where users have easy access to all of the phrases, can play back the original recording and even delete them. However, this can be a long read and complicated task, depending on the number of total recordings.
Moreover, users need to look for “text not available” when browsing through their recordings, as this represents the times when Echo got awoken and recorded something that was not a request.
On this matter, Amazon mentioned that they choose to keep the recordings so that Alexa can learn your voice and how you speak to improve the accuracy of the results provided to you and to improve our services.” Whether this is the real truth or just a sugar-coated cover-up, facts prove that historical data is necessary for improvement of products.
