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Topics for Consideration 2019 Topics for consideration 2019 Voice assistants, constantly listening to your private life 02 Cloud computing under the GDPR 06 Data sharing: public interest issues 08 Political communication & GDPR: updating recommendations and clarifying best practices 10 The reuse of data accessible “online” by the research community: challenges and prospects 12 How is children’s data protected? 14 02 Voice assistants, constantly listening to your private life Smart speakers, voice-controlled personal assistants, conversational interfaces or chatbots, the vocabulary is vast and attests to the current significance of voice assistants. First rolled-out on phones, and later on speakers and headphones, voice assistants are gradually being added to our cars, our household appliances, and much more. Considered butlers of the 21st century, these assistants aim to help users with their day-to-day lives: answering questions, playing music, providing weather forecasts, adjusting heating, turning on lights, booking a chauffeur-driven vehicle/taxi, buying tickets, etc. Yet, whilst the aim of industrialists is to render technology invisible and to simplify exchanges, it is now clear that these technologies pose some real issues relating to users’ privacy. 03 Voice assistants are often paired with Having appeared in mass consumption These products are offered by major smart or connected speakers. However, goods in the early 2010s, many voice international groups such as GAFAM it is important to note that speakers are assistants are now being rolled out. (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, only vectors and that assistants can be Depending on the activity carried out by Microsoft), BATX (Baidu, Alibaba, integrated into any type of appliance. the enterprises’ developing them, these Tencent, Xiaomi) and even smaller In practice, voice assistants are devices assistants meet very specific needs: enterprises (such as Snips) with different with a speaker and a microphone, online sales, listening to music, task economic positions. more or less-developed computational planning, home automation, etc. abilities depending on assistants and, in nearly all cases, the ability to connect to the internet. How do these devices work? Vocal assistants generally work Step 3 a history of audio requests in order to according to five main steps. Take the The user makes a request enable the individual to listen to them example of a “smart” speaker: The phrase spoken by the user is and the publisher to improve its speech recorded locally by the assistant. This processing technology; Step 1 audio request recording can then be: metadata relating to the request, such The user “wakes the speaker up” as the date, time, account name, etc. using a key phrase (“Hey Snips”/ stored in the device, in order to allow “Ok Google”/“Hey Alexa”/etc.) the user to manage his/her data (e.g. a Step 5 The speaker is always listening for this smart speaker with a vocal assistant The speaker returns key phrase. It does not record anything from the company Snips); or to “stand-by” and does not perform any operations The assistant returns to a passive state until it hears this key phrase. This step sent to the cloud, or in other words to the of listening and waits to hear the key is performed locally and does not require company’s processing servers (which is phrase before being reactivated. any external exchanges. the case for example for Amazon Echo, Google Home and other speakers). Step 2 (optional) The speaker recognises the user Step 4 Some assistant models ask the user The audio recording is transcribed to pre-record samples of his/her voice into text and interpreted in order in order to create a voice profile and to provide a suitable response therefore recognise the user during Speech is automatically transcribed into interactions with the assistant. The text (speech-to-text) and interpreted purpose of identifying the user is to using Natural Language Processing be able to suggest different services to technology in order to provide a suitable the device’s different users (parents, response. A response is then synthesized children, guests, etc.). We call this vocal (text-to-speech) and then played and/ biometrics. It should be noted that or an order is executed (open the blinds, biometric data are considered sensitive increase the temperature, play music, data within the meaning of the GDPR, answer a question, etc.). and as such can only be processed with Whether these different processing the data subject’s explicit consent. operations are performed locally or on remote servers, the device (or its services) may store: a history of transcribed requests in order to enable the individual to view them and the publisher to adapt the service’s features; 04 The confidentiality The monetisation What are the of exchanges of intimate data stakes and While they are permanently on stand-by, As they mainly target homes by what are the vocal assistants can be activated and controlling smart devices and unexpectedly record a conversation entertainment services, devices with recommen- when they consider that they have a voice assistant are now central to dation to detected the key phrase. To better protect households. Users’ profiles are therefore users’ privacy and to avoid these types of fed by the different interactions between protect privacy? malfunctions, we advise: them and the assistant (e.g., life habits: favouring the use of devices with a the time they wake-up, heating settings, button to deactivate the microphone; cultural taste, purchases made, interests, The voice is an essential component of turn off the microphone/turn off the etc.). To control the use of such data, we human identity. As such, it is extremely device/unplug the device when users recommend: personal. Personal characteristics are do not want to be listened to. Some syncing services that are actually found both in acoustics (identity, age, devices do not include an on/off button useful to the user, while weighing gender, geographical and sociocultural and must be unplugged; the risks of sharing intimate data or origin, physiognomy, state of health warn third parties/guests of sensitive features (opening doors, andemotional state, etc.) and linguistics the potential recording of any alarm systems, etc.); (meaning of the words used, vocabulary conversations had (or turn off the being aware that any speech around used, etc.). Thus, providing voice microphone when they are present); the device can serve to fuel marketing recordings is not an inconsequential act. supervise children’s interactions with profiles; Furthermore, by developing outside these devices (stay in the same room, do not hesitate to contact the support of telephones, vocal assistants have turn off the device when not with service of the company providing the progressively transitioned from a them); assistant in case of questions. “personal” status to “shared” status. They In this case, check that the device have now permeated intimate areas and is configured by default to filter areas shared by several individuals such information targeting children. as living rooms, bedrooms and even the insides of vehicles. These paradigm shifts raise new questions such as those relating to the collection and processing The lack of a screen of third-party data. The purpose of vocal assistants is to provide a human-machine interface Lastly, as stated above, in most cases, without any visual media. vocal assistants rely on the processing of speech signals on remote servers. As However, to both configure these a result, although speech is generally devices and manage data, tools such as associated with a certain degree of dashboards are still necessary. Without volatility, vocal requests are still recorded an external screen or any display in the cloud as are text requests when features, it is hard to see which traces entered into some search engines. are recorded, to assess the relevance of suggestions, to learn more or to have The CNIL has identified three areas to access to answers from other sources. In be aware of, which add to the various order to manage how such data is used, questions that users may be faced with: we recommend regularly visiting the dashboard (or the application) provided with the assistant to delete the history of conversations or questions asked and to personalise the device based on needs; e.g. configure the default search engine or source of information used by the assistant. 05 What future developments and CNIL works are yet to come? Manufacturers are very active in improving voice assistants’ abilities and security. Although some are increasingly interested in putting an end to the use of a key phrase to wake assistants, others are working to carry out processing operations to separate sound sources in order to improve systems’ listening capacity - for example, to reduce TV volume, to separate one person’s speech from another’s, etc. Lastly, professionals are also looking into new places where these systems can be used, such as in hotels and workspaces, thereby reviving questions relating to the effective use of data. The topic of vocal assistants was identified as an area for works to be carried out by the CNIL in 2017. The latter quickly made contact with various stakeholders in order to gain a perfect understanding of the systems deployed. It has led important discussions within the CNIL’s digital innovation laboratory (LINC), its structure dedicated to experiments and studies on emerging digital use trends. As such, a thematic dossier comprised of articles and interviews with professionals was published on its website. In 2019, the CNIL plans to pursue these works, by continuing to exchange with the industrialists and academics working on these topics, but also by continuing tests on these devices. In particular, the aim is to study how we can guarantee that users are well informed of the data collected, the uses made of such data and the means at their disposal to exercise their rights of access, modification, erasure and portability, as well as to assess the security of the data processed and how the artificial intelligence algorithms that are inherent to these devices learn.
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