Everything You Say To Your Echo Will Be Sent To Amazon Starting On March 28

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In an email sent to customers today, Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon's cloud. Amazon apparently sent the email to users with 'Do Not Send Voice Recordings' enabled on their Echo. Starting on March 28, recordings of everything spoken to the Alexa living in Echo speakers and smart displays will automatically be sent to Amazon and processed in the cloud.

Attempting to rationalize the change, Amazon's email said: 'As we continue to expand Alexa's capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon's secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support this feature.' One of the most marketed features of Alexa+ is its more advanced ability to recognize who is speaking to it, a feature known as Alexa Voice ID. To accommodate this feature, Amazon is eliminating a privacy-focused capability for all Echo users, even those who aren't interested in the subscription-based version of Alexa or want to use Alexa+ but not its ability to recognize different voices.
Amazon said in its email today that by default, it will delete recordings of users' Alexa requests after processing. However, anyone with their Echo device set to 'Don't save recordings' will see their already-purchased devices' Voice ID feature bricked. Voice ID enables Alexa to do things like share user-specified calendar events, reminders, music, and more. Previously, Amazon has said that 'if you choose not to save any voice recordings, Voice ID may not work.' As of March 28, broken Voice ID is a guarantee for people who don't let Amazon store their voice recordings. Amazon's email continues: 'Alexa voice requests are always encrypted in transit to Amazon's secure cloud, which was designed with layers of security protections to keep customer information safe. Customers can continue to choose from a robust set of controls by visiting the Alexa Privacy dashboard online or navigating to More - Alexa Privacy in the Alexa app.'

Further reading: Google's Gemini AI Can Now See Your Search History

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