In recent years the popularity of voice activated personal assistants has risen steadily. The use of these assistants in a library space could be seen as a welcome convenience. They could be used to control aspects of the building and environment, such as the lights and air conditioning or more personal uses such as book recommendations or answering ready reference questions.

With this convenience comes certain security risks. These devices are almost always left on, waiting for their wake up command. They can easily be triggered into action by general conversation and background sound such as TV. All voice commands are recorded and stored in the cloud by the manufacturer. In the past they have recorded entire conversations without the participants being aware. In the case of Amazon’s Alexa some of these audio files are then listened to by a human in the pursuit of improving services. (Lynskey 2019)

These factors highlight the risk to personal privacy inherent with using these devices. One of their aims is to collect personal data which can then be monetised to advertisers (Lynskey 2019). There is the potential for virtual assistants to be hacked and used to eavesdrop or remotely download malware to connected devices (Yip 2017).  As Dara (2019) discusses, these devices are vulnerable to malfunctions which may inadvertently share sensitive information. Considering these issues we need to evaluate whether the benefit of these devices outweighs the privacy risk to not only ourselves, but everyone who comes into contact with them.

References:

Lynskey, D. (2019, October) Alexa, are you invading my privacy? The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/09/alexa-are-you-invading-my-privacy-the-dark-side-of-our-voice-assistants

Yip, K. (2017, August) Top 10 threats from unprotected intelligent personal assistants (IPAs). Retrieved from https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/top-10-threats-unprotected-intelligent-personal-assistants-ipas/#gref

Dara, R. (2019, December).  The dark side of Alexa, Siri and other personal digital assistants. The conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/the-dark-side-of-alexa-siri-and-other-personal-digital-assistants-126277

Image credit:

https://www.maketecheasier.com/security-privacy-tips-google-home-echo/ retrieved 05/02/2020