We love Alexa, there’s no end to how you can use this technology. But it’s no secret that the smart assistants in our smart hubs, smart speakers, phones, and tablets are relaying our data back to their manufacturers. The question is, what data are they collecting? And how can users opt out? But your contacts’ information? Your frequent locations? Your photo albums? It’s much harder to make the case that this data needs to be shared. Luckily, you can opt out of sharing some information with your smart home assistant. You just have to know where to look. You can prevent Google Assistant from recording and sharing your conversations by selecting Audio recordings and unchecking the Include audio recordings box. If you just want to limit Bixby on your Samsung phone, press and hold the Bixby button. Pull up the bar at the bottom of the screen and select the Options symbol. Then select Settings > Privacy. We recorded the data collected as expressed in the statements and matched up collection points where possible. Some statements used different phrasing to refer to the same data point, so we consolidated the data for comparison clarity. In addition, Reviews.org surveyed 1,000 Americans aged 18 and older to collect information about their smart-assistant usage, sentiments, and privacy concerns.
