Cut What Your Talking Gadget Hands Out, in 10 Minutes
This week started with an AI companion robot caught storing 8.3 million conversations in plaintext. Most of us won't return the speaker, watch, or toy that does the same thing. So here's the walk-through to limit what it sends, step by step.
1. Turn off cloud chat and voice history
Open the device's app and look for "voice history," "improve the service," or "cloud chat." Turn off history and delete what's stored. If the device can run offline or on-device, switch to that mode. Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and most AI toys bury this under Settings > Privacy.
2. Don't feed it real identity details
Register with a minimal account: a nickname, no birthday, no home address. For a child's device, never enter the kid's real full name, age, or school. The device works the same; the profile the company builds is thinner.
3. Strip the app's permissions
On your phone, open the companion app's settings and revoke microphone, location, contacts, and photo access it doesn't need to function. A toy's app does not need your contact list.
4. Put it on a guest Wi-Fi network
Most home routers let you run a separate "guest" network. Put every smart gadget on it. That walls them off from the phones and laptops holding your real files, so a hijacked toy can't see the rest of your house.
5. Delete the account when you're done
Stop using a device? Delete the account, not just the app. Email the maker's privacy contact and ask them to erase stored data. Under state privacy laws and COPPA for kids, many companies have to comply.
Quick tip
Changing your password does not fix a company's leaky servers. If a gadget stores your words in the cloud over plain http, the only real fix is cloud-off or unplugged. When "off" isn't an option, that's your answer on whether to keep it.
Up next · Monday
The week's most important privacy story, in plain English: what happened, why it matters, and the one free thing to do about it.