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Amazon Echo

Source: Smith Collection/Gado / Getty

If you’re worried about your Amazon Echo always listening to you and want to know exactly the device has recorded, this article is for you.

There are rising concerns among some people about exactly how much of their conversations Google or Amazon digital assistants are listening to. Amazon states Alexa is always picking up and recording your conversations as its way of learning more about you and noting your tone of voice, frequent requests and prompts. Strange occurrences reported by customers such as Echo speakers laughing spontaneously or devices sending recorded conversations to friends without their permission have sparked worries. Amazon has an explanation for those rare instances by claiming the device was triggered by false positive commands.

For those of you who feel a bit wary and want to see precisely what Alexa has recorded, there is a way to do so. By opening the history tab in your Alexa app, you can see every single request you have issued to Alexa. That includes music requests, internet queries, and timers. You will also notice times you may have said “Alexa” but didn’t follow up with instructions because you may have possibly mentioned it by mistake.

While you are searching through your history you might want to focus on instances labeled “text not available.” These are the times Alexa was woken up by the wake word and then proceeded to record something that wasn’t even considered a request.

Pretty spooky stuff and if you’re a part of tin foil hat hive, you might be saying.  “I told you so.”

After going through your history, you are either allowed to delete what you feel as suspicious one by one or go to Amazon’s Manage Your Content and Devices page to remove everything at one time.  In doing so, Amazon warns you might “degrade your Alexa experience.”  For the sake of privacy though that might possibly be a small price to pay.

Photo: Smith Collection/Gado / Getty