5 Home Assistant Privacy Settings You Need to Know About

Your smart home assistant is surveilling your every move. 

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction and a dystopian future, but it’s true. Learn why and how you can protect your privacy. 

The problem with smart home assistants

A common theme in our recent blog posts has been the tendency of tech companies to collect far more data than necessary and sell that data to anyone who’ll buy, including data brokers. But you might not know just how much your smart home assistant collects. 

They can: 

• Listen to and keep all your voice recordings indefinitely by default
• Send data to humans for review or model improvement
• Share data with third parties
• Track you through advertising IDs
• Track and keep precise location data

Imagine if cybercriminals breach a system holding your voice recording data. Three seconds of audio is enough to clone your voice. A quick visit to a data broker site will tell the cybercriminal who to call: maybe an elderly family member to ask for money in your voice. 

Or maybe your location data will end up in the hands of law enforcement, advertisers, or data brokers who sell it to anyone who pays. 

Or maybe your requests to your home assistant end up in an AI model training database, including any personal information you might have shared in those little chats. 

Smart home assistants trade convenience for risk. 

Adjusting smart home assistant privacy settings

Every smart home assistant works a little differently when it comes to privacy features, so we’ll look at three of the most common: Alexa from Amazon, Siri from Apple, and Google Home / Google Assistant / Gemini for Home. 

To view privacy settings:

Alexa: Go to Settings > Alexa Privacy > Manage Your Alexa Data

Siri: Settings > Siri & Search

Google products: myaccount.google.com > Data and Personalization

1. Set to never save voice recordings and delete existing recordings/history

Adjust this setting to keep your voice data out of the hands of advertisers, AI models, and cybercriminals. 

Alexa: Under Manage Your Alexa Data > Smart Home Device History, choose one-time deletion of history and choose “Don’t Save Recordings” 

Siri: System Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri > Delete Siri & Dictation History and click Delete. 

Google products: In the app, tap profile, go to My Activity > Web & App Activity and disable “Include voice and audio recordings.” Set voice data to auto-delete. 

2. Opt out of “help improve [device/service]”

“Improving” really means training an AI model. Once your data gets caught up in a training database, it’s much harder to remove. Opt out from the start whenever possible. 

Alexa: Disabled in 2025; it looks like this is no longer an option. 

Siri: System Settings > Privacy & Security and find and disable Improve Assistive Voice Features and Improve Siri & Dictation. 

Google products: Opting out of saving voice recordings also accomplishes this.

3. Regularly view third-party sharing permissions

These settings affect how smart home assistants share personal data or sell it to third parties. Disable anything unnecessary to stop the spread of your information. 

Alexa: Settings > Alexa Privacy > Manage Skill Permissions and Ad Preferences and disable any ‘skills’ (company services/products) that you don’t want to have access to your data.

Siri: Settings > Privacy & Security > HomeKit to view which apps have access and disable any that seem unnecessary. 

Google products: Under your Google account in your browser, go to Third-party Apps & Services and disable unnecessary connections. 

4. Reset your advertising ID

Your advertising ID is a unique identifier that lets advertisers track your habits, interests, and ad interactions. It’s the reason why you look up a particular type of app one time and then you get a bunch of related ads for a week afterwards. 

Alexa: Settings > Alexa Privacy > Manage Skill Permissions and Ad Preferences and select “Reset Advertising ID.” 

Siri: Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking and toggle Allow Apps to Request to Track off. You can turn it on again if you want personalization in the future. 

Google products: You can reset your advertising ID on your Android device by going to Settings > Security and Privacy > More Privacy Settings > Ads and selecting either “Reset advertising ID” or “Delete advertising ID.”

5. Turn off location services

Location services let your home assistants expose your address and sometimes the location of connected devices, like your phone or smart car. 

Alexa: Off by default. If you’ve turned it on before, check under Your Account > Manage Your Content and Devices > Alexa and put through a request to delete data. The request only deletes some data; this walkthrough will help you delete the rest.

Siri: Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services and toggle off. 

Google products: The app usually draws its location data from your phone. Check under app permissions to disable. 

Final thoughts

Don’t let your home assistants become another device that surveils your every move. With the right privacy settings, you can access the convenience of a smart home without completely giving up your data. 

Learn more:

• Listen to our recent podcast episode on digital surveillance. Smart home systems get a mention.
• Try out our free scan to see where your data might be exposed online
• Take a look at our article on five-minute privacy tips to help you keep yourself safe online.