How to use your Amazon Echo’s built-in privacy features
Amazon Echo devices are some of the bestsmart speakersand displays available. They work seamlessly with most smart home devices and integrate with most music streaming services, allowing you to listen to your favorite tunes. In addition, they allow you to place audio and video calls using their built-in microphones and cameras, in the case of smart displays. Some Echo speakers come with built-in temperature and presence sensors.
This may cause concern about whether your privacy is respected since these are always-listening devices. Amazon has processes and tools to ensure you have control over your data and your privacy is respected. The first and most straightforward option is to use your Echo device’s built-in buttons and shutters to deactivate the microphone and camera. You can also browse the privacy settings and adjust them according to your preferences.
Physical controls
Most Amazon Echo speakers and smart displays come with physical controls that let you turn off the microphone and obstruct the camera, ensuring the device is neither listening nor “seeing” you.
To turn off the microphone, press the mute button. This button is usually on the speaker’s top, as shown in the image above. When the mic is muted, your Echo speaker illuminates in red, indicating it’s not listening.
As for Echo Show smart displays, ensuring your privacy is respected is as simple as closing the camera’s physical shutter. Regardless of the model you have, if it has a camera with a shutter, the slider is located above the camera, as shown in the image above. Slide it to cover the camera to verify your device doesn’t see you.
Check Alexa’s privacy controls
In addition to the Alexa app, Amazon’s site offers advanced options to control your privacy settings. Go to theManage Your Content and Devicespage after signing in to your Amazon account to check them out.
From that page, clickPrivacy Settingson the toolbar. Next, selectManage Settingsunder Alexa Privacy to view your Alexa data.
Manage Alexa voice history
Your Alexa speakers record what you say to it. Go to theReview Voice Historytab to see the voice recordings of recent commands you used with Alexa. The queries are from any Amazon Echo, Android, or iPhone using the Alexa app, Kindle Fire, or Alexa-compatible TV connected to your Alexa account.
By default, it shows recordings from all devices during the last day. You can filter this by time frame or device. After choosing a time frame, you can delete voice recordings from that period.
Each query has an arrow in the upper-right corner, which provides more options when clicked. you could listen to the recording of your voice, delete it, or provide a thumbs up or down based on whether Alexa did what you wanted.
If you live in the US, Amazon Echo devices can listen for breaking glass or a smoke/CO alarm going off and then alert you about the noise. It lists the recordings of what it thinks these sounds are, and they can be filtered and deleted in the same way as voice recordings. Likewise, you can expand each one and listen to the recording before deleting it or providing feedback.
Click theManage Your Alexa Datamenu on the left to change how recordings are stored. You can decide how long Amazon keeps your voice recordings and detected sounds. The default isSave recordings until I delete them, which means Amazon keeps them forever unless you remove them. SelectChoose how long to save historyif you want to delete these recordings automatically every 3 or 18 months.
Another option you might want to turn on isEnable deletion by voice. Signing in to your Amazon account and navigating to this page is a chore if you only want to delete one recording. With this turned on, say, “Alexa, delete what I just said,” or “Alexa, delete everything I said today,“to delete the recordings from the Echo device.
Review Alexa smart home activity
ChooseReview Smart Home Device Historyfrom the side menu to see a log of when your lights are switched on and off, when your connected home security devices are triggered, and other information about connected smart home devices.
This page lacks some useful features. The screenshot shows when the lights were switched on or off, but it doesn’t show which device it was or who in the family group did it.
SelectManage my smart home dataat the top of the Review Smart Home Device History list to change how this history is stored. Like everything else, the default has these records stay around permanently unless you delete them. SelectChoose how long to save historyto set up auto-deletion, which can be done every 3 or 18 months.
Underneath that is the option to perform a one-off deletion of your smart device history, starting again from scratch. Next, you may have Amazon email you a complete history, which looks like our first screenshot but in the form of an email.
Manage and monitor Alexa skill permissions
Like the apps on your smartphone, Alexa skills require permissions to function correctly. Check these permissions to ensure your skills use only the permissions they need and deny access to skills you stopped using.
ChooseManage Skill Permissionsfrom the left side of the screen to see the permissions skills can access. Click the arrow in the upper-right corner of a permission to expand it and show which skills use it. To revoke a permission, click the toggle to the right of the skill.
Using your data to improve the Alexa user experience
The data Alexa collects, such as your voice recordings, is meant to be used by the virtual assistant to learn how to better itself. If that’s not something you want, it can be turned off. Amazon says, “If you turn this off, voice recognition and new features may not work well for you.” We’re not sure how true that is, but remember this if Alexa becomes more buggy after turning off this toggle.
From the left side, clickManage Your Alexa Dataand scroll to the bottom of the page. you could deactivate Amazon’s use of voice recordings, so Alexa doesn’t study them to improve, and no human reviews them. Further down, you can prevent Amazon from transcribing messages you send to others in your family group. Each person has their own toggle.
Get finer control over your Alexa data
Although Echo devices and Alexa collect plenty of personal data, you control what it can do with it and whether it should save and retain it.
Now that you know how to control your Alexa and Echo privacy settings, check out our tips and tricks on how tomake the most out of your Echo speaker. Alternatively, if you have issues using your speaker, check out our guide tofix common problems with Echo speakers.
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