Smart speakers can be a great aid in getting things done. However, the very reason they are there in user’s close vicinity and is designed to listen to user’s commands can also be its greatest weakness as well.
And the same has been demoed too, what with the Alexa recording a Portland couple’s private conversation and had it delivered to another individual in their contact list. Not to mention, there also has been the rather bizarre incident of the Alexa enabled speakers laughing spontaneously some time back.
While the latter might be considered hilarious and has since been worked on, the fact that the Alexa, or for that matter, any smart speaker is listening to or recording user’s commands/ conversation makes the device a security risk as well. That precisely is the reason users would do well to keep a tab on what the Alexa has been up to, along with maybe deleting a few conversations that they deem fit.
How to listen and delete Alexa or Google Assistant recorded conversations
The first step would be to launch the Alexa app present on a smart device followed by clicking on the three horizontal slats present in the top left corner to launch the menu options. The next step would be to click on the Settings and then History.
The History section is where all the commands along with everything else the users has ever spoken to Alexa is held. Also, it is here that users have the option to get rid of any stuff that they’d rather not wish the Alexa to keep a record of. That said, Amazon strongly recommends against doing anything of that sort claiming that deleting History records can adversely impact the knowledge base pertaining to that user and hence negatively affect the working of the smart speaker as well.
Meanwhile, here also are the steps needed to delete similar conversations users had with the Google Home smart speaker.
Go to myactivity.google.com. Click on the three dots in the top right corner, and select Delete activity by. You’ll be able to choose a date range—or all time—and you’ll find Voice & Audio under All Products.
