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Amazon basically keeps your Alexa recordings for as long as it wants
August 22, 2025
Amazonhas confirmed it indefinitely keeps yourAlexatranscripts and voice recordings if you don’t manually delete them. That’s according to a letter sent to Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) on June 28.
In the letter, Amazon Vice President of Public Policy Brian Huseman said the company uses the transcripts to “improve Alexa and the customer experience.” Amazon also uses the transcripts “to provide transparency to our customer about what Alexa thought it heard and what Alexa provided as a response.”
you’re able to review, listen to, anddelete voice recordingsassociated with your account. If you delete a voice recording, transcripts of your Alexa request and answer go with it. You can delete voice recordings in theAlexa appor atAlexa Privacy Settingsonline. Huseman added that Alexa transcripts are deleted from Amazon’s main storage systems when users delete them, but work was underway to delete them in other storage systems.
However, Amazon “might still retain other records of customers’ Alexa interactions.” Compounding matters, developers ofAlexa Skillscan keep records of the interaction between an Amazon customer and Alexa.
Unfortunately for Amazon, Coons’ statement toCNETdoesn’t sound like he feels better about things:
Another point of contention is Amazon not making transcripts anonymous. Because transcripts are associated with every user’s account, anyone with access to an account can view those transcripts. You can delete recordings to prevent that from happening, but even that clearly comes with an asterisk.
By comparison,Applekeeps user data related to its Siri assistant forup to two years. Furthermore, the Cupertino firm claims to anonymize the data, but still uses it to improve Siri functionality.
Whichever way you cut this, Amazon’s response was not the one Coons and others similarly concerned about privacy wanted to read.
NEXT:How to hear and delete Alexa recordings
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