How To Delete All Alexa History?

How To Delete All Alexa History
How to Stop Alexa from Saving Your Voice Recordings – To stop Alexa from saving your voice recordings via a web browser, go to amazon.com/alexa-privacy/apd/home and select Manage Your Alexa Data, Then click Choose how long to save recordings and select Don’t save recordings, Finally, click Confirm and then Confirm,

Go to amazon.com/alexa-privacy/apd/home, Then select Manage Your Alexa Data. How To Delete All Alexa History Next, click Choose how long to save recordings. Then select Don’t save recordings and click Confirm, Finally, click Confirm,

Once you know how to delete all your Alexa history, check out our list of the best smart home devices, How To Delete All Alexa History

Should I delete Alexa history?

Why does Alexa save recordings? – Amazon says that Alexa saves recordings to make the experience better, to improve the accuracy of the results. Presumably it uses these recordings to learn about how you speak and the sort of things that you ask for – and does warn that if you delete them it could degrade the Alexa experience.

Does Alexa have history?

Using the Alexa app, you can listen to Alexa recordings by going to the menu and selecting Settings > Alexa Privacy > Review Voice History. By default, you can review your voice history for the current day and select an entry for a closer look.

Where is Alexa data stored?

Computer Forensic Consultants, FTI Consulting 6/13/2019 The digital universe will explode to 40 trillion GB of data by 2020. The total Internet of Things market is forecasted to hit $520 billion in the next two years, and will account for at least 10 percent of the total digital universe.

We’re talking 4 trillion GB of IoT data in the foreseeable future. All this data, and the ways in which it is collected, stored and secured is intersecting with the blending of corporate and personal worlds, raising important questions about data privilege, compliance and the future of digital forensics.

Connected devices are always listening and recording. And once data is on a device, it becomes ubiquitous, extending from the device to its related apps, other devices it interacts with and cloud databases. But what information lives within all that data? Where is it stored? Who has access to it? Can it be recovered? The range of implications and opportunities that arise in these questions are far reaching and complicated.

We’re already seeing a flurry of news reports about data privacy violations relating to IoT data, malicious actors leveraging these devices for their own gain and information from connected devices entering courtrooms as evidence.
Looking at this through the lens of digital forensics, and the emerging need to collect IoT data for investigations and litigation, we must begin to think about the corporate risks, and how we can tap into connected devices for practical needs and uses.

In an effort to uncover some of the mystery around IoT-generated data, our team conducted forensic testing on several devices, including the Echo Dot and Google Home. Our research looked at where and how data resides on these devices, how they transfer it to the cloud and amongst other devices, and the most effective approaches for forensic collection.

Data stored locally on the device: On the Echo Dot, Alexa always remains listening so that she can be situationally aware for commands and questions from users. Therefore, 60 seconds of audio used for this pre-processing is always stored on the local device. The clip is continually overwritten with the next most recent 60 seconds. When a request is made of the device using a preset wake-word, a half second of audio preceding the command and the command are sent to the cloud and stored. While the local audio files would rarely be needed for a forensic investigation, they can be collected via a “chip-off” process, which requires physical removal of the device’s chip, and once removed, analysis by specialized technology. Of note, when our team researched collection of data stored on the smartphone paired with the device, multiple findings confirmed that this data was encrypted. The results of our testing on Google Home were comparable.
Data stored in the cloud: With access to the user credentials, cloud data can be collected from the smartphone app/account paired with the devices. Information available in the cloud includes:
- Device Information – including username/password, serial number and software version
- Alexa/Google Enabled Devices – additional devices the user has associated with their account
- Skills – such as third-party apps added to device (this allows investigators to understand what other apps the user is using); on Google Home, these include YouTube, Pandora and Google Nest – any data requested of these services and others through the Google Home will be recorded and stored
- User Activity – any type of command a user gives to Alexa or Google is stored as a,wav file (audio file); individual recordings are stored indefinitely and can be pulled and replayed
- Cards – on the Echo Dot, graphical cards enhance the voice interactions and card history can be accessed and collected from the cloud; for example, if a user asks Alexa for a recipe, she will save a card with each step of the recipe in the user’s activity, so it can be referenced as needed
Alexa data is also available through an API using the user credentials. The network traffic is transferred over an encrypted connection, but the native artifacts can be returned in a readable format. The data listed above can be accessed in this way, as well as network configurations, all groups the user has associated with the account, the last 50 activities performed by Alexa on any device that has Alexa enabled and specific voice recordings. On Google Home, to further correlate commands recorded for third-party apps such as Nest, investigators can identify and pull related Nest sqlite databases and plist files that can be found in a user’s iPhone backup. These artifacts can reveal when someone left or arrived home, or manually changed the temperature, which can be helpful data points during an investigation.
Deleted data: Our team took the following steps to understand how/if deleted data could be recovered.
- Using Oxygen Cloud Extractor, collected an Alexa user account and preserved the collection.
- After preserving the collection randomly deleted a variety of commands from the app’s activity and history.
- Re-collected the Alexa account to understand if the deleted entries could be recovered.
- Upon comparing and forensically analyzing the two collections, we found that once an entry is deleted, it is non-recoverable.
Additional discoveries: The Alexa app includes an activity section as well as a history section. The difference between these two sections is the activity section is on the home screen, easy to navigate and easy for the user to delete activity. The activities section contains the cards that were generated via commands. Conversely, the history section contains every command ever spoken to Alexa. History is accessible to the user, but lives deep within the app, thus difficult to find for users that are not technologically savvy. This detailed history helps Alexa continue to learn and work smarter for the user. From a forensic standpoint, it would be potentially beneficial for finding critical information – in a sensitive case, a user may think they have deleted certain evidence, but it could still reside in the history. The Alexa also has a configurable feature called “drop-in,” which acts like an intercom between different Alexa enabled devices. Two devices can be connected if allowed access to one another, and once connected, a user has the ability to drop-in and listen without the end user’s ability to accept or deny the connection. Alexa also actively records conversations that are preceded with what the device interprets as a command word. Our testing found,wav files of the test subjects having a casual conversation, following a word that sounded enough like preset wake-words. These types of recordings may be relevant during an investigation, but their storage also introduces privacy considerations that organizations should be aware of. The testing outlined above provides only a snapshot of the type of information that may be accessible from IoT devices in the event of an investigation or litigation that required collection from them. It’s important to note that the information available through a user’s account is only a small fraction of the larger pool of data that resides with the companies that make these devices. With more and more people working remotely, and using these devices in their home offices, corporations must be aware of the implications, and the ways in which IoT information can impact both their legal matters and compliance initiatives.

The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of FTI Consulting, its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, or its other professionals.

How much information does Alexa store?

Our smart devices are listening. Whether it’s personally identifiable information, location data, voice recordings, or shopping habits, our smart assistants know far more than we realize. A survey on smart assistant usage conducted by Reviews.org (Opens in a new window) showed that 56% of respondents are concerned about data collection.

After analyzing the terms and conditions of Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Bixby, and Cortana, though, it’s clear that some degree of data collection is inescapable. All five services collect your name, phone number, device location, and IP address ; the names and numbers of your contacts; your interaction history; and the apps you use.

If you don’t like that information being stored, you probably shouldn’t use a voice assistant. In the survey, 60% of respondents were concerned about someone listening to their voice recordings, which is a real fear, since Google and Apple have both been caught doing just that. While Google Assistant and Siri now need your permission to record your interactions, the other options record you by default.

Which option is the most invasive? Analysis by Reviews.org found that Alexa collects 37 of the 48 possible data points, the most data out of any other. (It’s probably not a coincidence that our readers named Alexa as the least trustworthy voice assistant.) Samsung’s Bixby collects 34 points of data, and Cortana collects 32 data points.

Siri collects just 30, and Google’s smart assistant only 28, making them the least invasive. Keep in mind that no voice assistant provider is truly interested in protecting your privacy. For instance, Google Assistant and Cortana maintain a log of your location history and routers, Alexa and Bixby record your purchase history, and Siri tracks who is in your Apple Family.

Does Alexa have a cloud?

True story – Recently, our bedroom light stopped working. The problem, it turned out, was an Alexa skill. When opening the skill up in the Alexa app, this message was displayed, “The link between accounts has expired. To continue using My Leviton with Alexa, click Enable to Use and link your accounts again.” We have an old non-smart floor lamp in the bedroom that has three non-smart dimmable LED bulbs.

We control it with a Leviton DW3HL-1BW Decora smart plug,
This plug is different from most smart plugs because it has a dimmer.
Most smart plugs just support on and off.
But the Leviton plug lets you set any brightness you want.
At about $40, it’s more expensive than most smart plugs, but the dimming feature makes it worth it.

Here’s how these things work. An app on the phone talks to the smart switch. This is a Leviton-provided app. To make Alexa control that switch, there’s a skill, which is launched in the Alexa app. Think of the skill as the glue that connects the switch to the Alexa network.

In order to authenticate that Alexa is allowed to control the switch, the skill talks to the app’s cloud-based component and verifies our account.
So you have the local Alexa and the local switch.
You also have the Alexa cloud and the switch vendor’s cloud.
All these things need to handshake and work together.

As the message showed, that link expired. Also: Best smart plug: Putting the app in appliances But here’s the thing. You don’t want your light switch to expire. You want to set it up once and just use your light switch. If we have to reset all our IoT devices every three months, or whatever, that will make the whole smart home idea crazy-making.

Can Alexa pick up your conversation?

When does Alexa record? – Amazon’s list of frequently asked questions says that Alexa only begins recording your conversation upon hearing the device’s wake word. “So, when you say ‘Hey, Alexa,'” Schaub explains, all of “the audio gets analyzed and is being listened to by the microphones on the device, and only if the keyword ‘Alexa’ is detected, then everything that you say after that gets” recorded.

After the device records, it uploads the audio to Amazon’s cloud, where they “have algorithms in the server that analyze the speech pattern and try to detect and identify the words you are saying.” While Alexa’s response may seem instantaneous, it actually has to work with Amazon’s cloud to comprehend varying accents, speech clarity, and vocabularies.

This means that each time you wake up Alexa, the smart speaker is recording your conversations, “creating an automated transcript of what you are saying, and using that to fulfill your request,” says Shaub. For example, let’s say you want to use Alexa to check the weather—and that you like to goof off in the “privacy” of your own home by asking funny questions to your Alexa,

You might say, in a faux British accent, “Your Royal Highness, Queen Alexa, what is the weather?” Since Alexa is always listening, the device picks up and analyzes all of the audio that you just produced.
However, it is only programmed to begin recording your words when it detects it’s trigger word, “Alexa.” The recording is then sent to the cloud, your accent is dissected, and the words are transcribed.

Since Amazon’s server knows the location of the speaker, it identifies the weather in your area, sends it to the device, and Alexa reads the response aloud. RELATED: These cool Alexa accessories are must-have items You may not be surprised to learn that Alexa records your voice when you are specifically speaking to her.

This seems reasonable enough, especially considering Amazon allows you to review and delete these recordings through Alexa’s privacy settings,
For many of us, the issue arises when we hear that Alexa is always recording our conversations—even when we haven’t “woken” her up.
Officially, Amazon advertises that its Alexa and Echo devices are not programmed to record or store information unless they are specifically activated.

However, this has not always been the case.