She found out how to request data from her Amazon device and was shocked to find folders containing thousands of voice recordings.
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TikToker my.data.not.yours states she “requested all the data Amazon has on me and here’s what I found.”
She has a total of three Amazon smart speakers, two Dot speakers and one Echo device.
Her home does also contain smart bulbs. When she downloaded the ZIP file these are all the folders that were inside.
She chose to view the audio files and was shocked to see the thousands of short voice clips that she believes Amazon has recorded from her smart speakers.
The TikToker describes the situation as “so scary” and played one of the clips of her asking to turn the light on.
3534 short audio clips were present in that file alone.
Amazon also sent her a ‘Contacts’ file which contained the full list of her contacts:
“It turns out they have a full list of my contacts from my phone and I never remember syncing that.
“The very last thing that I didn’t know that they had, I could have assumed that they have but I don’t love that they have, is my location.”
There is also another file that shows the precise location of her Alexa speakers.
As you can imagine after discovering this data she said “I’m not totally comfortable with everything they have.”
We believe it’s down to the person whether it’s a scary thought or not with people weighing in:
“It’s scary that people with Echo Dots and Alexa’s etc don’t know that Amazon records you and keeps the recordings.”
“Can someone explain to me why this is ‘scary’? I’m not interesting enough to care if they have my contacts or audio.”
A spokesperson from Amazon said:
“We give customers transparency and control over their Alexa experience.
“Customers can easily review and delete their voice recordings, or choose not to have them saved at all, at any time.
“Customers can import their mobile phone contacts to the Alexa app so they can use features like hands-free calling and messaging; this optional feature, which customers need to set up, can be disabled at any time.
“Finally, you can grant permissions for the Alexa app to use certain data, such as your mobile device’s geolocation, to provide relevant results (e.g., weather, traffic, restaurant recommendations), and you can manage these permissions in the app.“
How do you feel about your Amazon device recording everything you say?
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