The Scary Reason You Should Unplug Your Dot Every Night

Amazon’s best-selling Echo Dot is a powerful little speaker that works with voice commands to do everything you can possibly imagine. Want to make a phone call, play music, pull up a weather report, set up an alarm, or start playing a podcast or audio book? If you own a Dot, doing these things is as easy as verbally requesting them. The Dot is compact, simple to use, and has become so ubiquitous that it seems everyone you know owns one. But this is one tech device that isn’t always all that it’s cracked up to be. It has one major flaw that you need to keep on your radar to protect your privacy. And this is the scary reason you should unplug your Dot every night.

On the one hand, it would make sense that your Echo Dot can hear what you’re saying — it requires that capability in order to function well and do the things you tell it to do. On the other hand, it should only be listening when you demand its attention. And that’s one major flaw that the company has yet to address, according to tech experts. 

“Your Echo Dot is always listening to what you say and by default they NEVER delete any of the audio recordings,” says Tech Expert Benny from SmartHomestarter.com. “This could be years of audio recordings that they have stored on their databases. This means they will record and store when you mention sensitive information like your social security number, bank account numbers, and more.”

The only way to prevent this is to go into your settings to disable or modify how long they record before they delete your audio files, Benny says. “I urge anyone with an Echo device in their home to change their settings immediately. This is a huge security hole that most consumers don’t realize. Back in 2018, a man received over 1,700 audio recordings of another consumer by accident from Amazon! Your data is never 100% safe with any company.”