Although you might think that Star Trek’s voice control might be futuristic, it is actually more realistic than ever! After the smartphone, tablet and wearables, it is now time for a new kid on the block; the smart speaker. Tech companies are embracing this new trend whereby Amazon introduced its Echo in 2014, followed by Google’s Home in 2016. Recently, Apple announced to compete in the smart speaker battle by bringing its Homepod to the market by the end of December 2017 (Kelly, 2017). However, as the smart speakers are not even adopted by the masses yet, it is already a hot topic in terms of privacy control.
For now, most smart speakers have been promoted for home usage, but smart speakers could be utilized for much more. For instance, Alibaba has recently formed a joint venture with Marriott International to install the staggering amount of 100.000 smart speakers in their hotels. Hotel guest will be able to change the lights, order taxis and even order room service (Jing, 2017).
However, if smart speakers will be installed in a lot of places such as your home and hotel rooms, will the tech giants be monitoring everything you say? According to them the answer is simply ‘no’. Smart speakers are set up in a way that they only actively listen to your voice when triggered by pre-set words like “Hey Alexa” or “Hey computer” (Carroll, 2015). However, this implies that they are always passively listening to your voice (Tahiri, 2017). Although the tech companies try to secure their data as much as possible, what happens if hackers are able to surpass the encryption of said devices? Will hackers be able to listen to everything you say, even in your own home? Are tech companies really only listening when their devices are triggered by the pre-set words? It won’t be the first time that tech companies have lied about privacy related matters. Take the recent news of Uber’s ability to record your smartphone’s screen as example (Sulleyman, 2017).
Eventually I believe it is rather likely that smart speakers will be adapted by the masses. However, we should be aware of the implications we consent to when bringing the tech companies really into our homes. Therefore, it is advisable that before you buy a smart speaker, to make sure you know which possible privacy concessions you are automatically making.
References
Carroll, R. (2015, November 21). Goodbye privacy, hello ‘Alexa’: Amazon Echo, the home robot who hears it all. Retrieved October 8, 2017, from theguardian.com: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/21/amazon-echo-alexa-home-robot-privacy-cloud
Jing, M. (2017, October 5). How ‘smart’ speakers and facilities could change China’s hotel industry for good. Retrieved October 8, 2017, from scmp.com: http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2113966/how-smart-speakers-and-facilities-could-change-chinas-hotel
Kelly, H. (2017, June 9). Apple’s HomePod is coming. Here’s what you need to know about smart speakers. Retrieved October 8, 2017, from money.cnn.com: http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/08/technology/gadgets/apple-homepod-smart-speaker-faq/index.html
Sulleyman, A. (2017, October 6). Uber app can secretly record everything on your iPhone’s screen, researchers find. Retrieved October 8, 2017, from independent.co.uk: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/uber-app-iphone-permissions-privacy-apple-security-greyball-london-ban-a7986336.html
Tahiri, H. (2017, June 27). Are smart speakers putting your privacy at risk? Retrieved October 8, 2017, from smartly.ai: https://smartly.ai/blog/smart-speakers-and-privacy/
Hi Leon, I think your post is great. You talk about one of the main issues that is coming from the adoption of new technology. Doing an elective last year about privacy, surveillance and new media technology I released that this issue is becoming increasingly more important.
Technology keeps on improving and it is clear that the relationship between humans and machines is only going to become closer and more interactive, as a result being able to collect more data and more accurate. One of my main concerns, is that these technologies are controlled or connected to the companies who sell the products, and these companies are also very interested in our data. Therefore, I believe that as time goes by there will be more regulations and control on how companies can obtain our data. However, as you mentioned the data might not even be used by the companies themselves (in this case, the speaker might not be recording conversations due because the company wants it to) but they become a vulnerability and at risk of hackers to take the data hostage or use our personal information (in this case, the recording technology can still be activated remotely).
Nonetheless, I think we have to also be concern with the issue of privacy and learn more about it, so that we are at least able to manage our own data and to protect it to a certain extend. I also think that this issue should be tackled by companies as well as the institution controlling them, so that companies are fair about the way they get data. Once the issue is more public, we will also get more insights from the companies about how to protect ourselves.
Interesting article Leon. I agree that this is a vital issue that should be on lawmakers agendas going forward. Numerous apps work by asking “permission” to use a list of data points that your phone or home device can share. By gathering this information, we are trusting that these companies will act responsibly with these data points, which history has shown us is not always the case. It will be interesting to see what regulations will be implemented as technology improves, allowing companies to take more and more data from consumers.
Thanks for the interesting post Leon, I think you raise some interesting points about privacy and information getting into the wrong hands. I think we should definitely be wary of all these products new products, that are constantly connected that also have multiple sensors to capture voice and video. For example, we already saw that CIA was using methods to check into people’s living room by hacking their Samsung’s televisions. Although this specific method required physical access to the television, it can’t be ruled out that in the future this can be done from distance. We should definitely be careful with the information we share nowadays, whether this is while talking to Alexa or sharing information on Facebook because we don’t know what companies or hackers are doing with this data.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/03/07/cia-wikileaks-samsung-smart-tv-hack-security/#1c86dfc84bcd