Owners of the Amazon Echo have long had the option for the device to process requests locally, thereby keeping their information off of Amazon’s servers. That functionality is going away starting on March 28.
The company sent out emails to customers to explain the changes.
“We are reaching out to let you know that the Alexa feature ‘Do Not Send Voice Recordings’ that you enabled on your supported Echo device(s) will no longer be available beginning March 28, 2025,” the email reads. “As we continue to expand Alexa’s capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon’s secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support this feature.”
Per Ars Technica, the changes don’t stop there. Users who have the “Don’t save recordings” feature enabled will also lose access to Voice ID, a feature that allows Alexa to share user-specific things like calendar events, music preferences, and more. Thus, in order to keep that functionality, users will have to manually change that setting as well.
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In short, everything you say to your Echo devices after March 28 will be sent to Amazon’s cloud, and there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. If users continue to make Amazon delete recordings, they will also lose access to features their devices had by default when they were purchased.
Amazon attempts to assuage security concerns by telling users in the email that “Alexa voice requests are always encrypted in transit to Amazon’s secure cloud, which was designed with layers of security protections to keep customer information safe.”
However, as Ars points out, once the information gets there, it’ll be used by Amazon and its employees to do as they please.
The announcement has not gone over well, with many Alexa users storming Reddit over the weekend to voice their displeasure.
The news comes a couple of weeks after Amazon’s announcement of Alexa+, a subscription service that adds AI enhancements. The retail giant had delayed the release of Alexa+ due to a severe setback, but it seems to be on pace to release the service this year. Amazon says Alexa+ will offer a more seamless and context-aware experience and also work with other Alexa-enabled devices like Ring video doorbells and other tech.
