Is Amazon's Alexa really always listening?

In a world where we don't always know how our personal information is being used by tech companies, it's hard to know which of them to trust--especially with "always listening" devices like Amazon's Echo. Fortunately, Amazon is not always listening to you. Instead, Echo listens for the key phrase, "Alexa," and then starts recording. These recordings are attached to your account and you can go and clear your history at any time. Amazon Echo and Echo Dot use on-device keyword spotting to detect the wake word.