Is Amazon Alexa Spying on You?

Amazon's Echo speaker, with its built-in Alexa functionality, is useful for controlling your smart home and getting quick information on traffic and the weather, among other things. But as convenient as Alexa is, it can create an eerie feeling that Alexa is always listening; spying, even. And those concerns are valid, especially since you're putting what is essentially a microphone connected to the internet in your home. If that's a concern for you, you have plenty of privacy options to help you feel a little less creeped out.

Is Amazon Alexa always listening?

Technically, yes, Alexa is continuously listening but it's mainly just keeping an ear out for when you say one of its wake words, such as "Alexa," "Amazon," "Computer," or "Echo," depending on what you've set in the settings. When an Echo speaker or display hears its wake word, it'll then start executing commands that come after it such as, "what's the weather?"

When you say the wake word with a command, your Echo speaker will take the recording of you saying that and upload it to Amazon's servers to be processed and then execute the command. This all happens within a matter of seconds.

According to Amazon, in an FAQ about whether the voice assistant is listening and recording everything you say, it says:

Alexa is a part of your life only when you ask Alexa to be. By default, Alexa begins listening after your Echo device detects the wake word, so Alexa does not listen to your personal conversations.

If what Amazon says is true, then there shouldn't be anything to worry about. However, it's not always that simple. Through the course of normal conversation, you may say the wake word, not intending to give Alexa any commands, but causing the Echo to activate and begin listening for a command nonetheless. Amazon does say that Alexa can wake up by accident, especially when having conversations in the same room as an Echo speaker and saying a word that sounds similar to Alexa. The company says you can get more info about why there was an accidental activation by asking, “Alexa, why did you do that?”

How to protect your privacy around Amazon Alexa

There are a few ways you can protect your privacy around Amazon's voice assistant. The first is to stop Alexa from listening. To do this, just press the microphone button on the top of your Echo speaker. Depending on which Echo device you have, the button should have a microphone icon with a line through it or a circle with a line in it. Your Echo device should display a red circle when the mic is muted. Of course, while the microphone is disabled, you will not be able to issue any voice commands.

Another option to beef up your privacy is to delete your voice recordings. To do so, you can use one of three commands:

• "Alexa, delete what I just said."

• "Alexa, delete everything I said today."

• "Alexa, delete everything I've ever said"

You can also delete your voice history via the Alexa app by going to Settings, Alexa Privacy then Review Voice History. If you choose All History, you'll see an option for Delete All My Recordings.

Your third option is to configure your settings so that voice recordings are deleted automatically after a certain period of time. To do this, go to Settings, Alexa Privacy, then Manage Your Alexa Data and then select Choose how long to save voice recordings. You have the option of three months, 18 months, until you delete them, and also the option to not save any voice recordings at all.