Amazon has announced a concerning change to its privacy policies that will affect millions of Echo device users worldwide. Starting March 28th, the company will remove a critical privacy feature that allowed users to prevent their voice recordings from being sent to Amazon's servers.
The change eliminates the "Do not send voice recordings" option currently available in Alexa settings. This means all voice commands captured by Echo speakers and Show displays will automatically be transmitted to Amazon's cloud for processing and analysis, with no way for users to opt out.
The policy shift comes as Amazon prepares to launch Alexa Plus, its new AI-powered upgrade. The company claims the change is necessary to support expanded AI capabilities that rely on cloud processing. However, this raises fresh concerns about data privacy and how recordings may be used.
While Amazon states that voice recordings will be encrypted during transmission and deleted after processing, the company's track record on voice data handling has been questionable. In 2019, reports emerged of Amazon employees manually listening to and annotating Alexa recordings, including private conversations and potentially sensitive content.
The change presents users with a stark choice: either accept that their voice interactions will be sent to Amazon's servers, or stop using Alexa entirely. Even users who don't plan to upgrade to Alexa Plus will be affected by this policy update.
Some privacy options will remain, including the ability to prevent voice recordings from being saved locally. However, enabling this setting will disable certain features like Voice ID, which allows Alexa to recognize different household members.
This development may particularly worry the 70% of users who, according to recent surveys, already express privacy concerns about AI-enhanced voice assistants. The removal of user control over voice data transmission suggests these concerns are well-founded.
The change primarily impacts English-speaking users, as non-English speakers never had access to these privacy settings. Amazon's move represents another step toward reduced user privacy in the name of AI advancement, leaving consumers with fewer choices about how their voice data is handled.