{"id":46621,"date":"2025-03-16T14:50:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T18:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technewsday.com\/?p=46621"},"modified":"2025-03-16T22:51:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T02:51:22","slug":"amazon-dumps-privacy-with-new-alexa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/amazon-dumps-privacy-with-new-alexa\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon to Discontinue Local Voice Processing on Echo Devices Starting March 28"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"84\" data-end=\"203\"><span class=\"relative -mx-px my-[-0.2rem] rounded px-px py-[0.2rem]\">Amazon has announced that, effective March 28, 2025, it will discontinue the &#8220;Do Not Send Voice Recordings&#8221; feature on select Echo devices, resulting in all voice recordings being processed in the cloud.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"205\" data-end=\"239\"><strong data-start=\"205\" data-end=\"239\">Transition to Cloud Processing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"241\" data-end=\"398\"><span class=\"relative -mx-px my-[-0.2rem] rounded px-px py-[0.2rem]\">Previously, certain Echo models allowed users to process voice commands locally, enhancing privacy by keeping recordings on the device.<\/span> <span class=\"relative -mx-px my-[-0.2rem] rounded px-px py-[0.2rem]\">With this change, all voice interactions will be transmitted to Amazon&#8217;s secure cloud servers for processing, even if users opt not to save these recordings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"400\" data-end=\"426\"><strong data-start=\"400\" data-end=\"426\">Introduction of Alexa+<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"428\" data-end=\"587\"><span class=\"relative -mx-px my-[-0.2rem] rounded px-px py-[0.2rem]\">This shift aligns with the upcoming launch of Alexa+, Amazon&#8217;s next-generation AI assistant, which leverages advanced generative AI capabilities requiring cloud-based processing.<\/span> <span class=\"relative -mx-px my-[-0.2rem] rounded px-px py-[0.2rem]\">Alexa+ is scheduled to be available in late March, offering enhanced functionalities such as document analysis and storytelling, and will be free for Amazon Prime subscribers or $19.99 per month for non-Prime users.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Amazon&#8217;s Data Management Practices and Employee Access to Alexa Recordings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Amazon&#8217;s handling of voice recordings from Alexa-enabled devices has raised significant privacy concerns, particularly regarding data management and employee access.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Employee Access to Voice Recordings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 2019, reports revealed that Amazon employees regularly listened to voice recordings captured by Echo devices. This practice aimed to improve Alexa&#8217;s speech recognition capabilities but involved extensive human review.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Federal Trade Commission Findings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that tens of thousands of Amazon employees had access to Alexa users&#8217; voice recordings. The FTC criticized Amazon for inadequate access controls, allowing unnecessary employee access to sensitive data.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Privacy Concerns and Legal Actions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These practices have led to legal challenges. In October 2024, Amazon sought to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that Alexa illegally recorded private conversations without consent. The plaintiffs claimed that Alexa devices intercepted conversations beyond intended commands, raising significant privacy issues.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recommendations for Users<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Users concerned about privacy can take steps to manage their data:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Review Privacy Settings<\/strong>: Adjust Alexa&#8217;s privacy settings to limit data retention and usage.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Disable Human Review<\/strong>: Opt out of settings that allow Amazon employees to review voice recordings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For the rest, you have to trust that Amazon will not misuse your data.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amazon has announced that, effective March 28, 2025, it will discontinue the &#8220;Do Not Send Voice Recordings&#8221; feature on select Echo devices, resulting in all voice recordings being processed in the cloud. Transition to Cloud Processing Previously, certain Echo models allowed users to process voice commands locally, enhancing privacy by keeping recordings on the device. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1350,361,9],"tags":[1011,275],"class_list":["post-46621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-privacy","category-todays-news","tag-alexa","tag-top-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46621"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46625,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46621\/revisions\/46625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}