In this article, we'll explain how to prevent Amazon Alexa from listening to you through your Echo devices, how to temporarily disable the microphone, and how to prevent Alexa from sending recordings to Amazon employees for analysis.
How to prevent Amazon Alexa from listening in
Echo devices are constantly checking their microphone input for the wake word. This means that Alexa is effectively always listening for anything within range of the Echo’s microphone array. While this raises some concerns about Alexa data privacy, it’s necessary to fix the core functionality of these devices. If it weren’t always listening, it wouldn’t be able to hear its wake word and respond to your commands.
If you don’t want Alexa listening in all the time, you can mute the microphone on your Echo device. The problem with this option is that it doesn’t let you use the Echo device. If you want to use it, you have to physically tap the microphone button again, say the device’s wake word and the command or question you want to perform, and then press the mute button again.
Alexa regularly records your commands and uploads the audio files to Amazon for analysis, refinement, and other purposes. Technically, it’s only supposed to do this with commands and questions after the wake word. Yet anyone who’s used an Echo device for a while knows that Alexa has a tendency to misinterpret random snippets of unrelated conversation as its wake word.
