&gt; I can imagine this would be hard to &quot;tout&quot;.<p>Open source client + whitepaper describing how the client encrypts the data with a particular scheme that still allows the server processing they need, without leaking undue data.<p>This can be as simple as: audio stream is discarded on device unless &quot;ok Thing&quot; is recognized, by a low quality open-source on-device recognition software. After that, the next 2 minutes of audio are sent to the mother-ship for higher-quality recognition and analysis.<p>Done, privacy-preserving Amazon Echo alternative. Get a third party (the EFF?) to audit it for you and put a badge that means to semi-technical users, &#x27;this product goes beyond snake-oil on privacy&#x27;. Super-paranoid users can inspect the code for the client, which anyways includes little more than well-known open source libraries and some trivial glue code you don&#x27;t care who copies anyway.<p>Of course, the real reason not to do this, is that companies don&#x27;t want the 2 minutes of audio after the user asks their devices a question. They want the &#x27;big data&#x27; of 24&#x2F;7 surveillance (with all the beneficial applications this can have, but also the chilling ones).