Amazon recently confirmed that Alexa users will no longer have the ability to process requests locally, meaning your voice recordings will be stored in Amazon’s servers, no matter what you think about it. That’s…not great.
The good news is there are a couple of major alternatives you can use that have better privacy settings. The settings aren’t necessarily ideal in every case, as you’re still talking into a microphone that’s connected to the internet. But they’re still better than what Amazon is doing. Here are your options.
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Apple
Apple’s HomePod line of smart devices work similarly to Amazon Echo devices. You can ask questions and Siri will answer them, among other things. There’s good news and bad news regarding how all of this works, privacy-wise.
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According to Apple, some requests will be processed on-device, while others will be sent to Apple’s servers, with a visual indicator letting you know which one is which. If you want to keep away from Apple’s servers at all times and do everything locally, it doesn’t seem like that’s an option here. However, the privacy policy does promise that your audio data is not stored by Apple unless you specifically opt into that, which is the main thing we’re looking for here.
If you want to feel even better, Apple doesn’t associate any of your request data (be it text transcripts or voice recordings) with your name. It uses a random identifier instead, and your requests are decoupled from that identifier after six months.
Google Nest devices also give users a decent amount of control in this regard. You can go into your activity settings and choose what is and isn’t saved to your Google account, and that includes voice activity. It should be noted that Google does not retain audio recordings on its servers by default. There are also auto-delete options in Google’s privacy suite, in case you want to keep things around temporarily.
If you use a voice-based smart home device, there are inherent security risks that can’t really be avoided. But, at least in the specific case of having a company hoard your audio requests against your will, Apple and Google are both a better bet than Amazon at this point.
