A millennial dad said he removed all Amazon Echo devices from his home after his Gen Z daughter showed him that Alexa had stored hundreds of voice recordings without his knowledge.
u/attachedhearttheory explained how when his Gen Z daughter arrived at his home for dinner, she insisted that he unplug his Amazon Echo.
"I don't want Amazon to listen to my conversation,” she said. The millennial dad did as she asked while assuring her the devices would remain offline until activated with a wake word.
The 20-year-old instructed him to open his Alexa app, where he found "hundreds" of voice recordings.
"I had NO IDEA that Amazon was collecting everything I say. And the worst part is my 20-year-old looked at me like I looked at my grandparents back when they would post text messages or Google queries as Facebook statuses," he wrote in a post shared to r/Millennials on Jan. 12, 2026.
Millennials on the thread echoed u/attachedhearttheory’s newly held concerns.
"The phone, watch, TVs and cars are listening. The security camera, the MyChart that knows your ailments and the debit card that tracks your whereabouts does as well," wrote u/Cream06.
Others pointed out that they're suspiciously shown targeted ads shortly after mentioning a product or specific need within earshot of a smart device.
What’s worse is that the erosion of privacy opens individuals to vulnerabilities far more concerning than pesky advertisements. Increased surveillance puts people in marginalized and wrongfully targeted communities at risk.
“Watch out, Millennials…”
u/attachedhearttheory wrote he’s been living voice-activated device free since his daughter’s visit.
“I'm proud to say there are no longer any Echoes in my house," he wrote. "But I'm really ashamed of the fact that, at 41-years-old, I just didn't even think to look into it. Just had blind faith in a company that views me as a number.”
Are they really listening?
In an email to the Daily Dot, an Amazon spokesperson wrote: "Customers can choose not to save their voice recordings at all or have their recordings automatically deleted on an ongoing three- or 18-month basis."
Amazon users can access the Alexa Privacy dashboard, where they’re able to review settings and choose how recordings are stored or deleted.
Recordings like the ones found by u/attachedhearttheory are often just seconds long because the device was wrongfully woken up by background noise or a misinterpretation of spoken language.
“To a non-tech-savvy user, seeing a list of random conversation snippets looks like ‘it’s recording everything.’ In reality, it’s a list of times the machine was dumb…” u/xyzzzzy replied to u/attachedhearttheory.
Tech companies are more likely to track private information via data triangulation using GPS and input sources other than audio recording. “They say they are not listening to you, and it’s true," explained u/xyzzzzy. "What they are doing is much worse.”
Daily Dot contacted u/attachedhearttheory via Reddit.
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