What permissions does Amazon Alexa need?

Amazon Alexa requests 14 iOS permissions: Camera, Microphone, Contacts, Photo Library, Location (When In Use), Location (Always), Location (Always & When In Use), Motion & Fitness, Face ID, Save to Photo Library, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Peripheral, Local Network, and Apple Music.

How many SDKs does Amazon Alexa have?

Amazon Alexa integrates 24 third-party SDKs. 2 for crash reporting, 8 for infrastructure, and 12 for other. None are for advertising, attribution, or analytics.

Does Amazon Alexa access your location?

Yes. Amazon Alexa requests location access. The developer states: "Alexa uses your location to give you directions, local weather, location-based features and guide device setup.".

Does Amazon Alexa access your camera or microphone?

Amazon Alexa requests access to both your camera and microphone. The developer says camera access is for "You can use your device’s camera for video calling and to help set up certain devices". Microphone access is for "Alexa needs access to your microphone to hear your requests, make calls and send voice messages". These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does Amazon Alexa access your contacts?

Yes. Amazon Alexa requests access to your contacts. The developer states: "This allows you to call, message, and connect with your friends and family using their name, and receive more personalized experiences across Amazon services. Your contacts will be periodically uploaded to the Amazon contacts service.".

Does Amazon Alexa run in the background?

Yes. Amazon Alexa registers 9 background modes, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

What are some alternatives to Amazon Alexa?

Other lifestyle apps include AARP Now , FocusedActionJournal , Apartment List , Apartments , NGL , and ecobee . Each app takes a different approach to lifestyle and varies in its data collection and SDK usage.

Lifestyle · Privacy report

Amazon Alexa

Free · ★4.6 · AMZN Mobile LLC

Is Amazon Alexa safe?

It collects a lot of your data itself.

Our take. Its own App Store privacy label declares Amazon Alexa links 13 categories of your data to your identity, including health & fitness, purchases, financial info and location. That collection, more than any outside tracker, is the story here.

Privacy footprint · vs 87 lifestyleHeavy

Trackers from other companies0 · none

typical lifestyle: 4

Data the app links to you13 types · a lot

typical lifestyle: 5 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

Amazon Alexa links 13 categories of your data to you.

From the developer's own App Store privacy label. These are the kinds of data Amazon Alexa ties to your identity.

Health & FitnessPurchasesFinancial InfoLocationContact InfoContactsUser ContentSearch HistoryIdentifiersUsage DataSensitive InfoDiagnosticsOther Data

Who else is inside

Few or no outside trackers.

Amazon Alexa carries almost no third-party trackers, but that is not the good news it sounds like: it collects your data directly, so it does not need them. The collection above is the story.

How it compares

Where it sits among lifestyle.

Every one of these apps we have scanned, on the two measures above: third-party trackers it carries (across) and data it links to you on its own label (up). Toward the top right is more invasive.

Each dot is one lifestyle app. Amazon Alexa sits high on the left: it collects a lot itself but uses few outside trackers.

The evidence

What it's built from.

All 24 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. None are third-party trackers.

2crash reporting

22standard libraries

0 of the 24 are third-party trackers. The rest are the app's own code and standard open-source building blocks.

Show the full SDK list

Standard libraries22 · on-device

The app's own code plus open-source interface, storage and networking libraries.

How we know this

Counterspy downloads the app from the App Store and statically analyzes its compiled binary. Embedded SDKs are matched against a signature database and resolved to the company that operates each. We also read the developer's App Store privacy label, which lists the data the app says it collects and links to you. We do not run the app or intercept its traffic, so we report capabilities present in the code and the developer's own disclosures, not proven transmission. We assess privacy and data collection, not malware, security flaws, or developer intent. Reports are automated and never edited for payment. Scan v2.2.714903, 2026-04-03.

Third-party trackers are advertising, analytics and attribution SDKs detected by static signature matching. Presence shows a capability is compiled in, not that it ran or transmitted data.
"Data the app links to you" is the count of data categories the developer declares as Data Linked To You in its App Store privacy label. Labels are self-reported and not verified by Apple.
Comparison across the 87 lifestyle in our corpus. Trackers: median 4. Data linked to you: median 5.