Amazon Confirms it Stores Alexa Data Even if Users Delete Them

The company has filed a response to a Senator’s question if the company stores voice data.

Amazon has admitted that it stores Alexa voice data even after a user deletes them.

(Photo: iStock)

Amazon on Thursday, 4 July, admitted that it doesn’t always delete the stored data that it has obtained through voice interactions with the company’s artificial assistant Alexa, even after the user wipes out audio files from their account.

The company admitted to it in its letter to Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), dated 28 June. The letter, according to The Verge, sheds more light on the company’s privacy practices with regards to its assistant.

According to the report, the letter comes in response to Senator Coons’ request from last month, that raised the question as to how long Amazon holds on to the voice inputs and their transcripts it gets from voice interactions.

In its letter, Amazon confirmed some of these allegations, saying that it does, in fact retain users’ voice recordings and transcripts until the customer chooses to delete them, The Verge reports.

It further said that some of those transcripts gleaned from the transcripts are not removed since the company has to scrub the data from various parts of its global data storage systems which is why the company, in some cases, chooses to hold on to the data without telling the user.

“Ongoing effort to ensure those transcripts do not remain in any of Alexa’s other storage systems,” Amazon’s vice president of public policy was quoted by The Verge as saying.

(With inputs from The Verge)