These Amazon Echo Privacy Settings You Should Change Immediately

Disable Amazon Sidewalk: Amazon Sidewalk turns your Echo into part of a neighborhood-wide networking system that shares Wi-Fi bandwidth with nearby devices. Though Amazon uses encryption and rolling IDs, leaving Sidewalk enabled means your Echo silently interacts with unknown gadgets beyond your home. Turning it off in the Alexa app protects your bandwidth and closes an unexpected data channel connecting your network to the outside.

Set Voice Recording Auto-Deletion: By default, Amazon stores every voice command you make indefinitely in personal profiles and AI tuning. That builds a long history of what you’ve said that could be exposed if your account is ever compromised. In the Alexa app, you can choose to delete recordings automatically after a set time or immediately, shrinking the long-term archive and reducing potential privacy risk.

Turn Off Human Review: One unsettling privacy setting lets Amazon use your voice clips to “help improve Alexa,” which means selected recordings may be reviewed by real people or contractors. Disabling this stops human access for training purposes and keeps more of your interactions truly private, rather than part of supervised learning programs that analyze speech patterns.

Restrict “Drop In” Access: The Drop In feature acts like a remote intercom, letting contacts connect to your Echo and listen and speak without you answering. If permissions aren’t restricted to household members, friends, and extended contacts can monitor voice and video feeds unexpectedly. Setting Drop In to “Off” or “Household Only” prevents unwanted eavesdropping.

Review Detected Sounds History: Security features like Alexa Guard let your Echo listen for noises like glass breaking or alarms. But without managing this, your device archives ambient sounds on Amazon’s servers for algorithm training. Regularly clearing the detected-sounds log through Alexa Privacy settings stops long-term collection of non-voice audio.

Manage Skill Permissions & Ads: Third-party Alexa skills and ad preferences can collect more personal data than you realize. In the Alexa Privacy section of the app, review each skill’s permissions and disable interest-based ads that track your usage. This shrinks the data surface that apps and Amazon itself use for behavioural profiling.

Delete Voice History Manually: Even with auto-deletion enabled, it’s wise to manually purge stored voice history now and then. Alexa’s app lets you filter and delete recordings by date or conversation, ensuring sensitive information isn’t sitting on Amazon servers longer than necessary. Manual clean-ups give you immediate control over what’s stored.

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