We know how helpful the Amazon Alexa can be for busy families, and over the years, we’ve shared a ton of helpful skills right here on Cool Mom Tech. From fitness to meal planning, even budgeting, there are no shortage of cool uses for this gadget. But we’ve also reported that Alexa was recording conversations, and now, well, it turns out they’re holding onto your data for a very long time. Like, forever.

Related: Yes, it’s true. Alexa is recording your conversations. 

In a recent reply to Senator Chris Coons who had asked Amazon to disclose their data policies, Amazon stated that they keep transcripts of interactions with Alexa, even if the actual recording was deleted by the user. Yikes. And even though the Amazon representative stated they are making efforts to ensure that transcripts don’t remain on any Amazon storage systems, there are still records of conversations that have not been deleted.

And we’re not just talking about the voice assistant. As you probably know, you can use Alexa to do stuff like locking your door, which goes way beyond a simple “Hey Alexa, what’s the weather?” request. And all your purchases are being stored as well. So there’s that to be concerned about too.

While this might not deter you from using your Amazon Alexa, it certainly does give us pause, particularly as the number of data breaches seem to be on the rise. If we’re using one gadget to control a lot of our existence, then it’s important to think about what happens to that information.

via CNET

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