Your smart speaker has been listened to by a human
In 2019, Bloomberg reported that Amazon employs thousands of people worldwide to listen to Alexa recordings. This was not a secret. Amazon confirmed it. These reviewers transcribe clips, annotate them for accuracy, and feed corrections back into Alexa’s speech recognition model.
This isn’t constant surveillance. The recordings are triggered (supposedly) only when the device hears its wake word. But false triggers happen constantly: furniture moving across the floor, a TV character saying “Alexa,” someone saying a word that rhymes with it. Those accidental recordings get sent to Amazon’s servers, and some get reviewed by a person.
You can opt out of having your recordings used for training. Most people never do, because they don’t know this is happening.
What Alexa and Google Home actually record
Every time your Echo or Google Home activates, it records a short audio clip and sends it to Amazon or Google’s servers. This happens whether you meant to wake it or not. That clip is processed, transcribed, and stored.
Alexa’s history is reviewable and deletable. Open the Alexa app, go to More > Activity, and you’ll see a timestamped log of every interaction. You can play them back, delete individual clips, or set auto-delete to 3 or 18 months. Go to Alexa Privacy settings and turn off “Help improve Alexa” to opt out of human review.
Google Home works the same way. Go to myactivity.google.com, filter by Google Assistant, and you’ll find every recorded interaction. You can review, delete, and set auto-deletion from there. Google also offers a “Web & App Activity” auto-delete setting — use it.
The question isn’t whether these devices record you. They do. The question is how long that data is kept and who can access it.
Your smart TV is tracking every show you watch
Smart TVs are the worst data collectors in the average home — and most people have no idea.
ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) is technology built into TVs from Vizio, Samsung, LG, Roku, and others. It captures a sample of whatever is on your screen every few seconds. It identifies what you’re watching, whether that’s a cable channel, a streaming service, or a Blu-ray. Then it reports that back to the manufacturer. The viewing data is sold to advertisers.
Vizio settled with the FTC in 2017 for $2.2 million after collecting ACR data on 11 million TVs without meaningful consent. The company had been tracking viewing history and linking it to IP address data and demographic information since 2014. The settlement required Vizio to disclose its practices and get opt-in consent. But ACR is still on by default on most TVs sold today.
To disable it: the setting location varies by brand, but look in Settings > Privacy, Settings > System > Privacy, or a dedicated “Viewing Data” menu. On Samsung, it’s called “Viewing Information Services.” On LG, it’s “Live Plus.” On Vizio, search for “Smart Interactivity.” Turn all of them off.
Ring cameras and law enforcement
Ring cameras (owned by Amazon) store footage on Amazon’s servers, not locally. That’s convenient for remote viewing, but it has consequences.
Between 2018 and 2021, Ring had formal partnerships with over 2,000 US police departments. These let them request Ring footage directly from Amazon, often without the camera owner’s knowledge or a warrant. Amazon complied with these requests. After significant public pressure, Ring ended the program in 2022. But the architecture is unchanged. Your footage still lives on Amazon’s servers, and Amazon still receives government data requests like every other tech company.
Your options: go to the Ring app > Account > Privacy Settings and review what you’ve shared. You can also use End-to-End Encryption for stored footage, available on most newer Ring devices. With it on, Amazon can’t access the content of your recordings even if served with a request.
If the data-with-law-enforcement arrangement concerns you, consider cameras with local storage. Eufy (with HomeBase) and Reolink both offer models that record to a local hard drive without mandatory cloud. Note: in 2022–2023, Eufy faced significant controversy. Researchers found that cameras marketed as ‘local only’ were uploading facial recognition data to Eufy’s cloud servers. Review their current privacy policy and recent independent testing before purchasing.
Nest, Ecobee, and the devices you forgot about
Your thermostat is also collecting data. Nest (Google) and Ecobee learn your schedule — when you leave, when you return, when you wake up, what temperatures you prefer. This behavioral data informs Google’s broader advertising profile on you.
Ecobee’s privacy policy explicitly states that it collects “energy usage data, home status data (whether someone is home or not), temperature data, and usage patterns.” Some of this is shared with third-party analytics providers.
The IoT privacy problem compounds across devices. Every smart plug, smart bulb, and connected appliance you add is another data point. Most of them have weak or nonexistent privacy policies, update infrequently, and communicate over your home network in ways you can’t easily audit.
The practical setup that balances convenience and privacy
You don’t have to get rid of your smart home. But a few structural changes make a real difference.
Put smart home devices on a separate Wi-Fi network. Most modern routers let you create a guest network. Smart speakers, TVs, cameras, and IoT devices belong on it — not your main network where your laptop and phone live. This limits what your devices can see and communicate with inside your home.
Review and delete your voice history quarterly. Set a reminder. It takes five minutes in the Alexa app or myactivity.google.com. Enable auto-delete so recordings don’t accumulate indefinitely.
Disable ACR on every TV in your home today. There’s no tradeoff — ACR doesn’t improve your viewing experience. It only benefits the manufacturer. Turn it off.
Choose devices from companies with better privacy defaults. Apple’s HomePod does more processing on-device and stores less data than Amazon or Google equivalents. Sonos has historically been more restrained about data collection — though check its current privacy policy before assuming. For cameras, local-storage options from Eufy or Reolink eliminate the cloud dependency entirely.
For Ring specifically: enable end-to-end encryption if you’re keeping it. Then review your Neighborhood settings to confirm you haven’t opted into data sharing programs you didn’t intend to.
What you can do right now
Want to see what data brokers expose about you? See what a scan finds → shows an example report: the kinds of sites that list your name, phone, and address. Once KnytX Shield launches it will find and remove these automatically. Join the waitlist to get in early.