5 Amazon Alexa privacy settings you should change right away

Maria Diaz/ZDNET

When we brought our first Amazon Alexa device into our home almost 10 years ago, we were rightly concerned about having a device listening to everything that went on in our family room.

We eventually grew more comfortable and knowledgeable about Alexa's listening limitations. Today, we have an Alexa in practically every room of the house. And yes, that includes the bathrooms.

Also: 5 ways to make your Echo Show less annoying

But Alexa has not been without its weird behaviors. Alexa has decided to pop into a conversation when nothing resembling a wake word has been spoken. My wife has told me several times that if it wasn't for the usefulness of Alexa (particularly in managing lists and time), she'd want the devices out of the house. I tend to agree.

However, it is possible to reduce Alexa's intrusion on your privacy. In this article, I detail five things you can do to reduce -- but not eliminate -- Alexa's necessary intrusions on your privacy.

Where to find Alexa's privacy settings

To get started, you'll need to go to the Alexa app on your phone. I use an iPhone, but Android phones will look substantially the same.

Also: 16 incredibly useful things Alexa can do on Amazon Echo

Start by opening the Alexa app and tap the More button in the lower right corner of the home screen:

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

Then tap the Settings item. Then tap Alexa Privacy:

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

And finally, scroll down to Manage Your Alexa Data and tap that option:

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

We'll be on this screen for the first three of our key settings. Let's get started.

1. Control how long Alexa will save recordings

In Manage Your Alexa Data, look for Voice Recordings, and tap "Choose how long to save recordings". This feature determines how long the Alexa cloud saves all the voice recordings it picks up from your Alexa devices:

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

As you can see, mine is set to "Save recordings until I delete them", because I write about Alexa. If there's an interesting behavior, I'd like to be able to go back in time and see what my Alexas picked up with their mics. I think of this feature as having debugging enabled:

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

Besides, my wife and I are fairly boring and never say anything incriminating that might be recorded. If anyone were to listen to all our recordings, they'd hear hours upon hours of, "Oh, Pixel is such a good boy. Who's a good boy? Pixel is a good boy."

Also: How Amazon can turn around its failing Alexa business in 4 steps

But there's no reason to keep these recordings around otherwise. I wish Amazon offered an option to save recordings for one day instead of its minimum of three months. One day would give users a chance to see what Alexa heard, but not leave those recordings around forever.

If you're privacy conscious, I'd recommend changing this setting to "Don't save recordings".

2. Control how long Alexa saves smart home device history

Alexa keeps a record of all the smart home activities in your home. Taken with your voice history, these recordings provide a fairly clear view of your movements within your home. If you have thermostats or other sensors, Alexa also keeps track of the temperatures you find comfortable.

To control this feature, you'll want to be on the Manage Your Alexa Data screen and scroll down until you get to Smart Home Device History:

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

Once again, I keep mine set to "Save history until I delete it from Alexa", mostly for debugging and analysis. If you want the least amount of information saved, you might want to set yours to "Save history for 3 months":

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

It's baffling that Amazon doesn't have a "Don't save history" option. Fortunately, you can delete your history by going back to Manage Your Alexa Data. This time, scroll down until you see "One-time deletion of history". Tap that setting, read the warning, and then tap Delete.

3. Don't allow Amazon employees to listen to your recordings

This is easy. Just say no. From Manage Your Alexa Data, scroll down to "Help improve Alexa". Make sure the toggle for "Use of voice recordings" is turned off:

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

This is one place where Amazon explicitly says that "Only an extremely small fraction of voice recordings go through human review." So, while I'm vaguely amused by the prospect of some unfortunate Amazon employee listening to me baby-talking to my pup, I see no reason to leave this feature on.

Amazon does say, "If you turn this off, voice recognition and new features may not work well for you," but I haven't had any issues with Alexa's performance so far.

4. Review what skills have access to your data

Amazon isn't the only company that may have access to data from your Alexa activities. Whenever you enable an Alexa skill, the company that produced the skill may have access to your information. Specifically, skills may:

Access your first name or full nameAccess your street addressAccess location services (more data than just your street address)Access your email addressAccess your mobile numberAccess your country code and zip/postal codeView and modify your lists (more on why this might be necessary below)

To check and manage your skill settings, go to Alexa Privacy, and tap "Manage Skill Permissions and Ad Preferences". Note that this is the first setting in this article that isn't under the Manage Your Alexa Data section:

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

Once inside "Manage Skill Permissions and Ad Preferences", you'll see a menu with the various access options. As you can see, I've permitted one skill to view and modify my lists:

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

That's AnyList, which I've discussed many times before. With that feature enabled, we can say, "Alexa, tell AnyList to add cottage cheese to Costco," while in the kitchen, with our hands full.

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

I recommend toggling each skill permission menu item one by one. Make sure no skill has permission you're not willing to grant. Turn off any you don't like. Be aware that this change may alter the performance of the skill you've enabled. You might also consider removing actual skills and individual permissions if they overstep the privacy level you're comfortable with.

5. Turn off interest-based ads from third parties

This is an interesting setting because Alexa's audio-only devices don't usually push out ads, except for occasional reminders that printer ink is running low. But Echo Show video devices push out ads (we showed how to manage Echo Show preferences here) and some audio-based skills may push out promotions.

Even though most audio Alexa devices don't spam you with ads, they can still capture your interest information and possibly feed that to third parties. Amazon doesn't specifically say where they get that interest data, whether from voice recordings or your Amazon history.

Also: The best Alexa devices of 2024: Expert tested and recommended

If you allow interest-based ads, the Alexa privacy FAQ does say that the company may share ads that "might be of interest to you based on your interactions with certain content or services."

To stop this approach, go to the "Manage Skill Permissions and Ad Preferences" screen we talked about, and scroll down to "Interest-Based Ads from Third Parties". Turn off "Receive Interest-based ads from third-party skills and content providers on Alexa":

Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

While there, scroll down and tap "Reset My Advertising IDs". This option will prevent advertisers with your preference data from connecting any more information to you.

Your Alexa privacy footprint

So there you go. If you follow the above directions, you'll reduce some of your privacy exposure. Unfortunately, if you keep a device in your home that listens in, there will be concerns about what you say and what's stored in the cloud.

This isn't just an Alexa (or other smart assistant) problem. Our phones listen in. Some of our TVs do, as well. It's weird having a bunch of AIs with ears in every home and office.

How many devices are listening in your home? Have you made the settings changes I recommended above? Do you worry every day that the AIs will rise and take over?

Deep breath -- it's all going to be okay: "Alexa, sing me a happy song."

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