Voice assistant privacy: delete Alexa, Google and Siri recordings
Smart speakers and phone assistants can keep recordings of what you say to them. All three big assistants let you review that history, delete it and stop new recordings from being saved, but the switches are buried in different places.
Here is where to find them, based on Amazon’s, Google’s and Apple’s own help pages, plus a way to read text aloud that never sends anything off your computer.
Alexa
In the Alexa app, open More, Alexa Privacy, Review Alexa History, and pick an entry, a date range, a device or a profile; Delete all History clears everything. The same controls are on the Alexa Privacy Settings web page. Under Manage Your Alexa Data you can choose how long recordings are kept or pick Don’t save, which deletes them after Alexa processes your request. Amazon notes that typed requests and transcripts are kept until they have been inactive for 30 days, and that deleting recordings may make Alexa less accurate.
Google Assistant
In your Google Account, open Data and privacy, then Web and App Activity under History settings, and uncheck Include voice and audio activity. From then on, recordings of your voice interactions with Search, Assistant and Maps are not saved to your account. Turning it off does not delete old audio: open Manage activity on the same page, where items with an audio icon include a recording, and delete them one by one or all at once.
Siri
Apple stores and reviews Siri and Dictation audio only if you opted in to Improve Siri and Dictation. To change it, go to Settings, Privacy and Security, Analytics and Improvements and turn it off. Apple also notes that the transcripts of Siri and Dictation requests stored on your device are deleted if you turn off both Siri and Dictation.
Reading aloud without sending text anywhere
Voice assistants process speech on their servers. If you only need text read aloud, an offline engine keeps everything local: install the free SuperClonica engine with python -m pip install superclonica-cpu and voice a file with superclonica --text-file notes.txt --voice F2 --lang en --output notes.wav. After the model downloads once, it works without the internet, so contracts, medical letters and private notes stay on your computer.
A five-minute checklist
Look at your assistant history once to see what is kept. Delete what you do not want. Set auto-deletion or turn off saving. Check every account in the household, because each one has its own history. Repeat after big app updates, since settings move.