Voice assistants: can companies record our conversations?
Get Siri to call your favorite restaurant only by asking her to do so sounds great, doesn't it? But what do voice assistants hide? Do they endanger our privacy?
One of the main fears of voice assistants’ users is how their privacy is protected from personal data abuse, or even from cyber-criminals who may access the metrics the devices take or the voices they record, as these devices can recognize voices even in noisy environments.
What kind of music you listen to, how long you listen to it, what kind of food you order, if you order home delivery... These metrics, that can be collected by smart speakers, can allow to easily set up patterns of user’s consumption habits and routines.
According to cyber security company Kaspersky Lab, these virtual assistants can filter personal and corporate information. In fact, there have already been complaints from users who firmly believe that their private conversations were being secretly recorded.
"That little talking cylinder is always listening to you. And not just listening but recording and storing many of the things you say", wrote technology journalist Tim Moynihan about Amazon Echo in Wired magazine.
Regarding voice assistants, Amazon is the one who calls the shots in the US, followed by Google, while Cortana by Microsoft and Siri by Apple are almost absent, according to Strategy Analytics’ latest smart speaker report, “Global Smart Speaker Vendor & OS Shipment and Installed Base Market Share by Region: Q1 2018”.
Source: Strategy Analytics Smart Speaker service
This market seemed to quickly skyrocket and, although these voice assistants mainly work in English and they have a lower adoption rate in non-English speaking countries, they may see a revenue increase over the next five years up to $10 billion, according to Juniper Research.
In this world of the increasing importance of privacy, it is extremely important to offer devices that make sure that the data they collect is anonymous, or that such data will not be used for any purpose other than improving the service. Ensuring the protection and security of personal data is and should be one of the main challenges for the companies that deal with them.
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