Amazon Alexa collects more data than Google Assistant, Siri, Bixby, and Cortana

Amazon Alexa collects more personal data about its users than other assistants in the market, namely Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, Samsung’s Bixby, and Microsoft’s Cortana. The intelligent assistant monitors the browsing history in particular.

According to a survey by Reviews.org, Amazon Alexa is the smart voice assistant that collects the most data on its users. To determine the amount of information retrieved by the most popular voice assistants on the market, the website has “Combed through the terms and conditions of use” of each solution.

As Amazon’s Terms of Service show, Alexa collects 37 of the 48 sensitive data pinned by the study. The assistant sets itself apart from its competitors by paying close attention to your contact list, notices and emails sent to Amazon, your online purchases, your browsing history, content downloaded, streaming services used and to your WiFi network. Alexa collects in particular, and with the consent of users, information on the Internet access provider.

How to prevent Alexa from collecting too much data on your account?

By comparison, Google Assistant only collects 28 of the 48 data, compared to 30 for Siri, the voice assistant for iPhones, iPads and HomePods. For its part, Bixby, Samsung’s assistant, is satisfied with 34 data, against 32 for Microsoft’s Cortana. “It makes sense that some of this data is being collected. But the information of your contacts? Your frequent locations? Your photo albums? It is much more difficult to understand why this data is recovered ”, explains Reviews.org.

Obviously, it is possible to limit the amount of information Amazon Alexa focuses on you. To do this, simply go to the iOS or Android application dedicated to Alexa. Then follow the manipulation below:

• Go to More (at the bottom right)
• See you in Settings
• Go to the section Alexa and your personal information

In this interface, you will find several categories allowing to discover what Alexa knows about you, and to limit the collection. We advise you to go to the section Manage your Alexa data to set up limitations. Amazon allows you to “choose the length of time records are kept”. After this period of time has passed, Amazon will delete the collected records.

Source: Reviews.org