Amazon.com Inc. is updating its Alexa voice software to let users delete recordings of their voice using a spoken command, a move that follows criticism of the company\u2019s privacy practices related to its digital assistant.<\/p>\n
A set of updates offers users who have opted in online the ability to say \u201cAlexa, delete everything I said today,\u201d or, in a coming update, delete their most recent utterance. Previously, the only way to remove recordings was a tool on the Alexa privacy website or on the companion smartphone app.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good step in the right direction,\u201d said Florian Schaub, a professor at the University of Michigan who has researched privacy issues related to smart speakers. Recent reporting and research on Amazon\u2019s digital assistant, he said, likely \u201chelped inform these decisions\u201d by the company.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg reported last month that some Amazon employees listen to users\u2019 voice recordings as part of an effort to improve the software. In some cases, those workers can access the location of the person whose voice they are transcribing. Amazon\u2019s privacy and user policies didn\u2019t explicitly disclose either practice.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a coalition of children\u2019s and privacy groups asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Amazon had violated children\u2019s privacy laws by giving parents insufficient control of their kids\u2019 data. And CNET reported that even after users delete Alexa voice recordings, a text record of that information lingers on Amazon\u2019s servers. (Amazon said it was working on an update that would remove those text records from all of its systems after a user tries to delete them.)<\/p>\n
Amazon\u2019s move also comes as other technology giants make a point of touting their own efforts to safeguard user data. Facebook Inc., under fire after a string of privacy scandals, has started emphasizing privacy features. Alphabet Inc.\u2019s Google highlighted its own work on the topic at its developer conference earlier this month, and Apple Inc. has made privacy a cornerstone of recent marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be Amazon feels that they need to be in the same game,\u201d Schaub said.<\/p>\n
The company also gave its Alexa privacy website a facelift, adding a bit more explanation to how the software works. The company\u2019s Echo Show 5, a new version of the screen-bearing smart speaker line, announced on Wednesday, comes with a shutter that lets customers cover the built-in camera.<\/p>\n
Amazon.com is updating its Alexa voice software to let users delete recordings of their voice using a spoken command.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":273511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7431,723],"class_list":["post-308048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-alexa","tag-amazon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}