Users of Amazon.com Inc.’s voice assistant Alexa might have more concerns about their privacy after the firm this week admitted that voice data and transcripts are never deleted unless the customer does so — and even then, some data is never erased.

The revelation came after U.S. Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, sent a letter to Amazon in May inquiring about Amazon’s customer privacy practices.

Coons, who shared his letter on Facebook Tuesday, was concerned at the time about what happened to the voice recordings of people talking to Alexa. That letter came as a result of a report by CNET sthat Amazon kept transcripts of what has been said, even after users deleted the data.

A deadline of June 30 was given and Amazon’s vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman, made good on that. “I appreciate that Amazon responded promptly to my concerns, and I’m encouraged that their answers demonstrate an understanding of the importance of and a commitment to protecting users’ personal information,” Coons wrote on his Facebook page.

That’s all Coons was encouraged about, however, writing that the reply informed him that Amazon does indeed keep voice recordings and transcripts indefinitely. “What’s more, the extent to which this data is shared with third parties, and how those third parties use and control that information, is still unclear,” Coons added.

The senator went on to say that the American people deserved to know more about what happened to their data and how it was and is being used.

Customers might well soon have a clearer picture of how their data is used after the bill “Designing Accounting Safeguards to Help Broaden Oversight and Regulations on Data” or DASHBOARD comes into effect. This was the brainchild of Senators Mark Warner and Josh Hawley and was announced in late June.

Huseman said in the letter that there is an “ongoing effort to ensure those transcripts do not remain in any of Alexa’s other storage systems.” Nonetheless, he also said some conversations even if deleted by the user will still remain available as a transcript.

He said that data is used to train Alexa and didn’t say that if it was sold to outside companies. “Training Alexa with voice recordings and transcripts from a diverse range of customers helps ensure Alexa works well for everyone,” wrote Huseman.

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