Amazon is making it a little bit easier to delete Alexa recordings with a pair of new voice commands. You’ll now be able to say, “Alexa, delete everything I said today,” and the assistant will wipe all of the recordings it stores on Amazon’s servers. Amazon says another command, “Alexa, delete what I just said,” is in the works as well.
Until now, you’ve either had to go into the app to delete Alexa recordings one by one, or you’ve had to go through Amazon’s website in order to delete every recording at once. Amazon stores recordings of every request you’ve made to an Alexa device (theoretically, to help improve the voice recognition service and other features). Despite this being largely unnecessary, Amazon doesn’t provide a way to disable the long-term storage of voice recordings or have them deleted on a regular basis, as Google has done with some sensitive data.
The features come as Amazon faces down Alexa privacy concerns, particularly around children. Advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission earlier this month, alleging that Amazon’s recording practices — particularly for its Echo Dot Kids device — violate a federal law that protects data from children under 13. The group complained that Amazon “fails to clearly explain how to delete information collected about children.”
You can still use the following commands/processes to delete your recordings
Option 1: Delete recordings via app
To delete your recordings, go to the Amazon Echo app > Settings > Alexa Account > Alexa Privacy > Review Voice History.
You’ll see a list of all the requests you’ve made since setting up your Echo. You can choose the recordings you want to delete or tap Delete All Recordings for Today.
Option 2: Delete everything via browser
If you’re using a browser, there’s a way to delete all voice data in one fell swoop. Head to www.amazon.com/myx sign in, and click Your Devices. Find your Echo in the list, click Delete Voice Recordings.
You’ll see a warning message explaining why you might want to keep those recordings; click Delete if you wish to proceed.
You can also visit https://www.amazon.com/alexaprivacy and click Review Voice History.
Option 3: Contact Amazon
To completely remove your voice recordings and transcriptions, you’ll need to contact Amazon customer service at (888) 280-4331 to make a formal request.
Amazon’s new features don’t thoroughly address those concerns, but they do start to make deleting voice data a bit easier. Amazon hasn’t said whether it’ll make more thorough deletion voice commands, such as commands to delete all data or the past week or month of data available. We’ll have to wait and see what the FTC decides on the Alexa Kids complaint.
