The company follows recent privacy updates from Apple and Google
Amazon has become the latest company to give users the option to disable human review of voice recordings, shortly after Apple and Google announced similar measures.
The company has found itself consistently under pressure regarding Alexa privacy in 2019, with word initially leaking back in April that ‘thousands’ of Amazon employees are listening to recordings for training purposes.
Read this: How to delete Alexa voice recordings
Naturally, users have raised concerns over the privacy of conversations, children’s voices being used to create a voiceprint, and the lack of transparency. Now, it’s making a change.
“We take customer privacy seriously and continuously review our practices and procedures,” an Amazon spokesperson responded in an email. “We’ll also be updating information we provide to customers to make our practices more clear.”
Amazon has been, and still is, keen to stress that only a small number of recordings are reviewed by people. However, with this new change, we expect plenty to opt out.
To turn off human review, go to the Alexa app, then to Settings > Alexa Privacy > Manage How Your Data Improves Alexa and turn off the tab under Help Improve Amazon Services and Develop New Features. Amazon, perhaps predictably, warns that turning this off will potentially result in new features and voice recognition not working as well for you.
Essential reading: What Amazon does with your data
Whether the company has any further privacy updates coming this year remains to be seen. It’s a shame that it only followed the changes of Google and Apple (both, also, outed recently for the roles of employees in the review of recordings) in this instance, but it did enable and clarify the route users can take to delete Alexa voice history back in May.
Despite these new privacy practices appearing to be largely dictated by pressure, Amazon is, at least, heading in a better direction.
