Co-PI, Zubair Shafiq, presented research findings on the privacy threats of biometric data collection and sharing practices of voice assistants and smart speakers at the Federal Trade Commission’s ANPR forum on Commercial Surveillance and Data Security.
See his comments starting at 04:26:00 in the recorded webcast here.
For a transcript of PI Shafiq’s comments read below:
The commission asked about biometric information collected and used by companies and whether consumers are typically aware of that collection and use. I want to bring attention to recent academic research that has uncovered serious privacy issues with voice information collected by voice assistants and smart speakers. The convenience of voice input has contributed to the rising popularity of smart speakers, but it has also introduced several unique biometric privacy threats. Recent academic research has shown that smart speakers use voice data (directly or indirectly) to infer user interests and uses it to serve behaviorally targeted ads. This is despite them making deceptive public promises that they do not use this information “to target ads”. Voice assistants conjure notions of devices that serve consumers personally. But the reality is that they are far from personal in that they are controlled by, and share data with, the voice assistant manufacturers and other parties they interact with. The commission should strongly consider biometric information collected, processed, and shared by smart speakers and voice assistants in its rulemaking efforts.
Zubair Shafiq, at FTC’s ANPR Forum on Commercial Surveillance and Data Security