Amazon’s Alexa+ to Access All Voice Recordings Without Consent

Amazon’s Alexa+ will now process all user voice recordings, removing the option to opt-out, raising privacy concerns.

Amazon’s rolling out a big update to Alexa, calling it Alexa+, and it’s stirring up quite the conversation—especially about how it handles your voice. Gone is the option to tell Alexa, ‘Hey, don’t send my voice recordings anywhere.’ Yep, you heard that right. If you want to keep chatting with Alexa, your voice data’s heading to the cloud, no ifs or buts. Amazon says this shift is all about beefing up Alexa with some fancy generative AI tricks that need their cloud’s muscle to work.

Come March 28, if you were the type who liked to keep their voice recordings close to the vest, Amazon’s flipping your setting to ‘Don’t save recordings.’ Sounds reassuring, right? But here’s the catch: your voice still takes a quick trip to the cloud before getting zapped. The bottom line? You’ve gotta trust Amazon with your voice if Alexa’s staying in your life.

So, what’s Alexa+ bringing to the table? Think of it as Alexa on steroids. Ordering groceries across different apps without breaking a sweat, setting up your smart home to read your mind (almost), peeking at your security cameras, or finding something to watch on Prime Video just by asking. And there’s this nifty Voice ID feature—Alexa can finally tell who’s who in your household and respond like it’s got a personal touch. Fancy, huh? It’ll work on all the Echo Show gadgets out there and the ones coming down the pipeline. Prime members get first dibs, while everyone else is looking at an extra $20 a month. Ouch.

But here’s the elephant in the room: privacy. Amazon’s had its fair share of side-eye over how it handles data, and this move’s got people biting their nails. Even with Amazon’s pinky promise about keeping your data safe, taking away the opt-out option has left a sour taste for folks worried about what this means for their privacy. It’s a bold move, Amazon. Let’s see how it plays out.