Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Smart Home

How to enable privacy features on Alexa

Patrick Hearn
By

Although smart assistants have become the target of criticism with regard to privacy, Amazon’s Alexa has powerful privacy features built into its settings. You can turn these settings on to protect your privacy and data. We’ll go over exactly how to activate these settings to limit the risk of Alexa listening in, and how to erase any stored data within Alexa.

Review your voice history

Review your Alexa voice history.

One of the most powerful Alexa privacy features is the ability to review your voice requests. Alexa also includes any Type With Alexa entries here, too. Here’s how to see your history with Alexa:

  1. Open your Alexa app and tap More in the lower-right corner, then tap Settings.
  2. Tap Alexa Privacy and then tap Review Voice History.
Recommended Videos

From this screen, you can see all of the entries for the day. If you choose Delete All Recordings From Today, this data is cleared from your device and the cloud.

The ability to review your voice history lets you know if Alexa listened in to your conversations or heard something you didn’t intend for it to hear and gives you the ability to delete it. You can tap any recording and delete it individually, as well as leave feedback on whether Alexa performed the task you wanted or not.

Review any detected sounds

One powerful feature is that Alexa can listen for the sound of breaking glass or smoke and CO alarms. It’s a useful home security tool, but again, it can enable Alexa to mistakenly detect sounds you didn’t intend for it to hear.

From the Alexa Privacy screen, tap Review History of Detected Sounds. This will display all sounds Alexa has picked up and allow you to delete them in the same way you would your voice history.

Review smart home device history

From the Alexa Privacy screen, tap Review Smart Home Device History. This screen gives you the option to see the status of your devices, whether they are on or off and whether they are reachable or not.

Monitor skill permissions

Different Alexa Skills require different permissions. From the Alexa Privacy screen, tap Manage Skill Permissions to review exactly which skills need access to your:

  • Street address
  • Location services
  • Alexa lists (view or modify)
  • Email address
  • First name
  • Full name
  • Mobile number
  • Country and postal code
  • Amazon Pay

If you discover a Skill needs one of these permissions but you don’t remember granting access, that can be a red flag. Review the Skill page to see which settings are listed, and remove the skill if you find discrepancies.

Manage your Alexa data

If you tap the Manage Your Alexa Data option, you gain access to the primary control hub for all of your device data. From here, you can choose to enable the deletion of voice recordings through voice commands (by saying “Alexa, delete what I just said” or “Alexa, delete everything I said today”). You can also choose how long recordings are stored on your device.

You can choose to delete all of your data from third-party devices in your smart-home device history, as well as how long you want to store that data. You can also request an email containing all of your Alexa smart home history.

These same tasks can be performed for your Detected Sounds History, too. At the bottom of this page, you can choose whether or not to submit your voice recordings to Alexa to help improve its function. You can choose which users (if there is more than a single user in your home) can take part in this option, too.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Patrick Hearn
Patrick Hearn
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Patrick Hearn writes about smart home technology like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, smart light bulbs, and more. If it's a…
How do robot lawn mowers work?
A robot lawn mower in a backyard while a family relaxes.

Although not quite as mainstream as robot vacuums, robot lawn mowers are becoming increasingly popular. These nifty devices make it easy to maintain a beautiful lawn without lifting a finger -- although you'll need to make a pretty hefty upfront investment, as robot lawn mowers don’t come cheap.

But how exactly do robot lawn mowers work? Here’s a closer look at these innovative devices so you know what you’re getting into before making a purchase.
The basics of robot lawn mowers
Robomow RS630

Read more
Ring’s new indoor camera features a built-in privacy shutter
The Ring Indoor Cam mounted on a wall.

Ring is launching a new Ring Indoor Cam on May 24, and it’ll be the first indoor camera in its catalog to include a privacy shutter. The shutter allows you to turn off both the camera and microphone, and it can be easily removed if you don’t need the additional privacy features.

The shutter can’t, however, be remotely activated. This means you’ll need to manually swivel the privacy shutter in front of the camera when you want to use it, then swivel it out of the way when you want to start recording again. Still, as the first Ring Indoor Cam to offer the feature, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Read more
Your Google smart home devices just got a lot less talkative
A person standing in a living room while looking at a Google device.

Smart assistants are an indispensable part of any smart home, making it easy to give hands-free commands and control a variety of gadgets. Google is looking to further streamline the performance of its smart assistant, with the expansion of chime alerts to cut down on how talkative your Google Nest gadgets are when responding to instructions.

For example, after asking Google to turn on a fan, you’ll now be able to hear a quick chime to confirm the assistant has heard your instructions. Previously, confirmation would come in the form of a short sentence, such as “OK, turning on your fan.”

Read more