What Does Alexa and Echo Know About You? How to Review Your Voice History and Data

Smart home devices like Amazon's Echo speakers now serve a crucial role in many homes, including answering questions, playing music, controlling connected smart devices, and even managing your schedule with alarms and reminders. But most of us don't realize how much these devices actually know about us.

​What Data Does Amazon Collect for Alexa and Echo and Why?

Alexa is Amazon's voice assistant, available through the Alexa app for smartphones, plus hardware like the Echo lineup of smart speakers and displays. Amazon collects a variety of data using Echo devices and the Alexa assistant to improve services and enhance functionality. This includes device and app usage data as well as:

All of your device’s locations (if turned on). Voice recordings with transcriptions, including time and date of commands. Shopping data including items purchased, search queries, and shopping lists. Third-party service usage data which may also be shared between Amazon and third-party service providers. Home Wi-Fi and network data, including which devices are connected to it. Privacy and security data including account and login information, user profiles, Alexa preferences, and data on permissions you grant, like access to your calendar, contacts, or location, is stored.

Based on this data, Amazon can provide personalized services ranging from playing specific music tracks to re-ordering your favorite snacks with a simple voice command. Amazon also uses this to test performance and fix errors.

Is Collected Data Secure?

Many users assume that, since their voice recordings don't contain their names or personally identifiable information, they must be private and secure. The good news is, that you can download all the data that Amazon has on you from your Amazon account (we’ll get into how to do this soon). The bad news is, that if your Amazon or email account is ever compromised, hackers can gain access to all this data.

However, Amazon states in its privacy policy that any time data moves between your devices or their databases, it is encrypted to be secure, and that Amazon devices offer security features to protect them against unauthorized access and loss of data.

Amazon also recommends using a unique password for your Amazon account that is not used for other online accounts, and to remember to sign off when you have finished using a shared computer. There are also other ways you can secure your Amazon account.

How Do I Access This Data?

You can access the data that Amazon has collected. You can do this using the Amazon app or by logging in on the Amazon website. The instructions are the same, we've covered the app method below.

Open the Amazon app and tap on the hamburger button at the bottom, and go to “Account”. Now, scroll all the way down to “Request your data”.

From here, you can select “Alexa and Echo Devices”, and “Submit Request”.

An email with a link to confirm this request will be sent to you where you can download the data. A lot of the data can be accessed immediately, but sometimes it can take a couple of days.

How Do I Delete This Data?

You can delete stores Alexa data by opening the Alexa app and going to More > Settings > Alexa Privacy > Review Voice History.

From here, you can use the drop-down menu to select a date range, filter by device or voice ID, and select the voice recordings that you want to delete (or delete all voice recordings).

It's eye-opening to see just how much information Amazon collects. I even discovered voice commands from many years ago. Data collection practices like this are just one of the reasons some people don't trust most smart home devices.