Patent Applications Show Smart Speakers Have ‘Troubling’ Privacy ‘Implications,’ CW Reports
Amazon and Google patent applications “provide insight into the surveillance that is possible via smart home devices” like Amazon Echo and Google Home, with “troubling legal and ethical implications,” Consumer Watchdog reported Wednesday. CW conceded filing a patent application is…
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no guarantee a company will commercialize inventions. It recalled that patent applications for the Google Glass and Amazon Kindle “seemed outlandish when they were filed,” until they resulted in “very real products for the applicants.” To "anticipate and meet consumers’ needs in new ways, digital assistants make increasingly invasive forays into users’ private lives. As users accept these intrusions, they give up their personal data, and with it, their privacy and security,” the study said. With the smaller-sized Echo Dot and Google Home Mini, Amazon and Google have “begun to foray beyond the living room and into the bedroom,” it said. “There, they can infer from your interactions with the device when you wake up -- and maybe even who you wake up with.” An Amazon patent application published Aug. 17 “describes using voice signatures and behavior to distinguish between members of a household,” said the report. “This could help Amazon determine whether to advertise birthday cake to your spouse or to your six-year-old.” A Google application published in October 2016 describes methods of speaker recognition through use of “neural networks." Google didn’t comment.