As an update to our April 26th blog post entitled “Amazon Alexa Privacy Alert”, two lawsuits have been filed seeking class-action status regarding Amazon Alexa Echo Dot privacy issues. One lawsuit has been filed in the state court and the other has been filed in federal court. Both suits allege the routine recording of children and the indefinite storage of these voiceprints by Alexa without consent. Both suits also state that the technology is in violation of the laws of nine states, which require consent of all parties when recording, and the lawsuits seek fines, the deletion of existing recordings and prior consent for the future recording of minors.
Please note the following options and instructions for deleting recordings from Amazon Alexa (courtesy of Kim Kommando):
To delete existing recordings:
- Go to the Alexa app and access the main menu by tapping the three lines on the top left of your screen.
- Tap Settings, Alexa Privacy
- Tap Review Voice History
- From here you can delete the data for a specific day or delete All History
There is also a new feature in Amazon’s latest product, Echo 5, which will allow you to say “Alexa, delete everything I said today” or “Alexa, delete what I just said”. To enable this feature on your device:
- Go to the Alexa app and access the main menu by tapping the three lines on the top left of your screen.
- Tap Settings, Alexa Privacy, Review Voice History
- Slide the toggle to the right of the option Enable deletion by voice
For more information on this and other Amazon Alexa privacy issues, please see: https://threatpost.com/amazon-alexa-secretly-records-children/145708/
Additionally, Amazon has launched an Alexa privacy hub, which can be accessed here: https://www.amazon.com/Alexa-Privacy-Hub/b?ie=UTF8&node=19149155011