Amazon's virtual assistant allows you to control your smart home with voice commands, but is Alexa safe to use? Learn about Alexa privacy concerns and how to secure your Alexa device.

Information in this article applies to all devices that use the Alexa voice assistant, including the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Fire TV, and Amazon Fire tablets.

How Safe Is Alexa?

Alexa employs artificial intelligence to improve voice recognition and cater to the user.

Most of this is accomplished through machine learning, but Amazon also has a human quality-control team that reviews user recordings to ensure Alexa's accuracy.

It's also theoretically possible for hackers to access your voice recordings.

How to Protect Your Privacy With Alexa

In 2019, Amazon introduced new security policies and features to protect the privacy of Alexa users.These improvements include stronger limitations on the types of data human reviewers have access to.

You can use the following voice commands to review what you've said or delete recordings:

• "Alexa, delete everything I said today."
• "Alexa, tell me what you heard."

Users can even opt out of voice recording and human reviews from the Alexa app, though there's a catch if you have an Echo device that allowed the "Do Not Send Voice Recordings" feature.

As of March 28, 2025, all Amazon Echo device recordings go to Amazon's cloud servers, even if you had that "do not send" feature enabled.This privacy setting has been eliminated along with the option to save recordings locally.

You can opt out of Echo voice recording altogether, but Amazon says recordings will still go to the cloud before removal.You'll also lose voice ID, Alexa voice recognition of individual voices, and historical data.

Another safety precaution to consider is keeping your Echo devices away from windows so no one outside can overhear your conversations with Alexa.

For Alexa devices that travel with you, such as Echo Frames, Echo Loop, and Echo Buds, you should turn them off when you're not using them.

It's best to disable the microphone and internet connection on any Alexa device that's not in use.

The Amazon Echo Show 8 includes a privacy shutter for the camera, so you never have to worry about Alexa or anyone else spying on you.

How to Auto Delete Alexa Voice Recording

While it's possible to manually delete your Alexa history, you can also set voice recordings to delete automatically after a period of time.

1. Open the Alexa app on your mobile device and tapMore(hamburger icon).

2. TapAlexa Privacy.

3. TapManage Your Alexa Data.

   

4. Go toChoose how long to save recordings and typed requests to Alexa.

5. Choose how long you want Alexa to keep your recording, then tapConfirm.

   

6. Tap the toggle switch besideUse voice recordings to improveif you want to opt out of voice recordings.

   Disabling this feature limits Alexa's voice recognition capabilities.

7. SelectTurn Offto confirm your choice.

   

Other Alexa Privacy Concerns

Alexa and other virtual assistants are always listening so they can respond to your voice commands. Recording doesn't begin until after you say one of the wake words-"Alexa," "Amazon," "Computer," "Echo," or "Ziggy"-but it's easy to activate the virtual assistant by accident.

Fortunately, you can change Alexa's wake word to avoid accidentally turning her on. Any device that Alexa can sync with can also collect information about you, so you should take steps to prevent your smart home from getting hacked.

Police agencies can request data collected by companies like Amazon to investigate potential crimes.

For instance, Amazon has collaborated with law enforcement by proving video footage captured by the Ring Doorbell smart security system.

Amazon claims that it doesn't share customer data with advertisers, but this could change.

How to Protect Your Child's Privacy From Alexa

If you have Amazon Kids or Amazon Kids+, the Parent Dashboard is the hub for managing your child's browsing and viewing history and restricts internet and apps access.

Additionally, parents have complete control over who their kids can talk to-or whether they can make calls-on their Echo devices by specific contacts fromSettings>Communications.