The companies keep your recordings until you delete them.
Some companies let you turn that behavior off: here’s how.
Voice Assistants Record You After Their Wake Word
Voice assistants work in a straightforward manner.
They continually listen to everything you say, all day long.
But the rig in the room doesn’t have much intelligence.
The gear sends the recording out to company servers (Alexa, Google, etc.)
to figure out everything else you said and then act on it.
But after executing your command, the companies don’t necessarily delete your recording.
Instead, your spoken words are retained indefinitely toimprove Voice Assistant resultsand determine new features.
Some companies let you turn this behavior off.
And some don’t.
We’ve rounded up what you might do, and what the results are.
Amazon
Amazon retains your recordings to improve upon Alexa.
Your only options are tolisten to your recordings and delete themor forego using an Alexa-powered rig.
You canmute Echo devices,but that isn’t necessarily a permanent solution.
Just nudge the “manage how your data improves Alexa” option and then turn both toggles off.
Update:Amazon now lets you delete some recordings with your voice, too.
Hopefully, Amazon will follow Google’s lead and offer better options.
Microsoft
you’re free to only view and delete the existing recordings in Microsoft’sprivacy dashboard.
Worse than Amazon, it’s possible for you to’t even limit how Microsoft uses your recordings.
The only real option is toturn off Hey Cortana altogether.
If you’re using aCortana speaker, you would have to mute it.
Of course, you’re effectively giving up Cortana entirely.
Using Siri is essentially agreeing to allow Apple to use your voice recordings for whatever purposes it sees fit.
Apple
To turn off Siri Dictation go to prefs > Siri and toggle off both Hey Siri and Siri.
Tap on “Turn off” in the prompt.
Notice it mentions that recordings are still stored if dication is turned off.
Turn to off Dication got to options > General > Keyboards and toggle off Dictation.
Tap “Turn off” in the prompt.
Now it will confirm the recordings will be deleted.
(If you do this in the opposite order, the warnings will adjust as appropriate).
Unfortunately, not all Voice Assistants are created equal.
