How to Stop Companies From Listening to Your Voice Assistant Recordings

It7;s been in the news for weeks: Employees and contractors at Amazon, Google, Apple, and Microsoft are listening to recordings of you talking to voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Cortana. Here7;s how to stop humans from listening in.

Why Are Companies Listening to These Recordings?

Tech companies have employees2;or, more often, contractors2;listen to snippets of the conversations you have with voice assistants and other services. These are anonymized, which means the contractors can7;t see your name or any personal information. Most conversations are never listened to. But companies may have a contractor listen to a few seconds of recordings later and see how the assistant did.

For example, if the assistant didn7;t understand your question or provided a wrong answer, the contractor can note what happened. Developers can then use this information to improve the assistant and its capabilities. Many companies peek at the data you store with them and use the information they find for various purposes.

This is all allowed in the fine print you already agreed to when signing up for any of these services. But many people are surprised to hear it. And, considering voice assistants might accidentally activate in the middle of a conversation, it means that people could end up hearing snatches of potentially personal information.