Amazon ends little-used privacy feature that let Echo users opt out of sending recordings to company

Amazon is ending a little-used privacy feature that let some users of its Echo smart speaker prevent their voice commands from going to the company's cloud.

Beginning on March 28, Amazon is ending the “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” option that kept audio from being sent to Amazon's cloud and had it process locally on the device instead.

In an email sent to customers who'd been using the option, Amazon said it made the decision to “no longer support this feature” as it expands Alexa’s capabilities with generative artificial intelligence features that rely on being processed in the cloud.

While the change may sound alarming to some privacy-minded users, it was not widely used or available. It only worked on three devices: the 4th generation Echo Dot, the Echo Show 10 and the Echo Show 15 — and only for customers in the U.S. with devices set to English. Amazon said less than 0.03% of customers use it.

People still have the option to prevent Alexa from saving voice recordings. Those who'd been using the “Do Not Send” feature as of March 28 will automatically be opted into the “Don't save recordings” option, Amazon said.

“The Alexa experience is designed to protect our customers’ privacy and keep their data secure, and that’s not changing. We’re focusing on the privacy tools and controls that our customers use most and work well with generative AI experiences that rely on the processing power of Amazon’s secure cloud," Amazon said in a statement.