Concerns On Smart Speakers' Eavesdropping Justified, But Slightly Exaggerated - Canalys

Concerns on Smart Speakers' Eavesdropping Justified, But Slightly Exaggerated - Canalys

While fears that smart speakers may record users' private conversations are indeed justified, the public and media that highlight such risks forget that smartphones pose the same danger of recording data to be used to the advantage of tech giants, Ben Stanton, senior analyst with Canalys, an international tech-research company, told Sputnik

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th November, 2019) While fears that smart speakers may record users' private conversations are indeed justified, the public and media that highlight such risks forget that smartphones pose the same danger of recording data to be used to the advantage of tech giants, Ben Stanton, senior analyst with Canalys, an international tech-research company, told Sputnik.

Amazon's Alexa smart speaker as well as Google's Home smart speaker have both been exposed by media for eavesdropping conversations of their owners. Both companies have admitted that they store users' conversations and in some cases even listen to it, but pledged that the data, if recorded, is used to improve products and services. The tech giants also pointed out that the users may switch off voice recording even though that would limit the functionality of a device.

"Every one of the American major companies � Amazon, Google and Apple � have all been caught out with wire recording. It is a huge issue ... For some reason the speakers are seen to be insecure, yet as for smartphones people do not take care. We take smartphones to most critical business meetings, the most secretive government meetings are always on microphones but people don't seem to care. It is just a brand problem for speakers at this stage, I think in a couple of years we will get over it," Stanton said on the sidelines of the Conversations Conference on artificial intelligence, which was held in Moscow.

He noted that it was easier for the authorities and companies worldwide to manipulate public opinion through smart speakers, as such devices may limit the variety of opinions catered when used by the people to read the news out loud.

"I would say that probably voice is more dangerous than displayed content in terms of government and companies trying to create anchors for their own message. The way it manifests in voice is, for example, if you get your news via voice speaker or if you do internet search via voice speaker, it is very easy for the platform to narrow and push you down to one channel if asked for news or let's say for the 2020 US election. It is very easy to see how that could be manipulated into you receiving one side of the argument," Stanton said.

The leading tech giants such as Google and Facebook also need to halt political advertisement following the example of Twitter, the analyst underlined.

Smart speakers are gaining in popularity worldwide as almost 200 million smart speakers have been sold globally so far, while the sales are estimated at $16 billion. By 2023, a total of 589 million smart speakers are expected to be in use, according to figures by Canalys.