601 New Jersey Ave., NW Washington, DC 20001 June 28, 2019 The Honorable Christopher A. Coons United States Senate 218 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Senator Coons, Thank you for your May 23, 2019 letter regarding Amazon's privacy and data security practices with respect to our Alexa voice service. At Amazon, customer trust is our highest priority, and we know we must get privacy right in order to meet our
customers’ high expectations.
Our customer-centric approach has led us to follow privacy-by-design principles since we introduced the Echo device and Alexa service. For example, as we described in our response to your letter from last year, we designed Echo devices and Alexa to use on-
device “keyword spotting” technology to
detect when a customer intends to interact with Alexa; to use visual and audible signals to clearly indicate to customers when audio is being recorded for streaming to the cloud; to continually attempt to determine when
a customer’s request to Alexa has ended so we can minimize the amount of audio we stream to the cloud; to
allow customers to see, hear, and delete the audio that was streamed to the cloud; and to let customers control
when their Echo device’s
microphone is enabled through a microphone on/off button. We use the customer data we collect to provide the Alexa service and improve the customer experience, and our customers know that their personal information is safe with us. The answers to your questions are as follows:
1(a). How long does Amazon store the transcripts of user voice recordings?
W
e retain customers’ voice recordings
and transcripts until the customer chooses to delete them.
1(b). Do users have the ability to delete any or all of these transcripts?
Customers can review, listen to, and delete voice recordings associated with their account using the Voice History feature available in the Alexa app and the Alexa Privacy Hub, located at www.amazon.com/alexaprivacy
.
Customers can delete individual voice recordings, voice recordings from particular timeframes, or all of their voice recordings.
When a customer deletes a voice recording, we delete the transcripts associated with the customer’s account of both of the customer’s request and Alexa’s response. We already delete those transcripts from all of Alexa’s
primary storage systems, and we have an ongoing effort to ensure those transcripts do not remain in any of
Alexa’s
other storage systems.
We do not store the audio of Alexa’s respon
se. However, we may still retain
other records of customers’ Alexa interactions, including records of actions Alexa took in response to the customer’s request. And when a customer interacts with an Alexa skill, that skill developer may also retain
records of the interaction. For example, for many types of Alexa requests
–
such as when a customer subscribes to Amazon Music Unlimited, places an Amazon Fresh order, requests a car from Uber or Lyft, orders a pizza from Domino
’
s, or makes an in-skill purchase of premium digital content
–
Amazon and/or the applicable skill developer obviously need to keep a record of the transaction. And for other types of Alexa requests
–
for instance, setting a recurring alarm, asking Alexa to remind you of your anniversary, placing a meeting on your calendar, sending a message to a friend
–
customers would not want or expect deletion of the voice recording to delete the underlying data or prevent Alexa from performing the requested task.