01(Situation）
In recent two or three years, smart speakers have become very popular in households across the world, like Apple’s Siri, Google's Assistant, etc. Smart speaker can do many things for us, it can tell us news and weather, play music, and answer our questions once we give it voice commands. That’s great, especially for lazy, lonely and disabled people.
It is said that about ten millions of people in the UK are using smart speakers in households, and the popularity of these devices has been on a rise recently.
02(Conflict)
When you happily enjoy the advantages of smart speakers, have you ever thought about the other side of them? Are they safe or secure to use at home?
An assistant professor from the University of Michigan tried to explain the underlying story to us. ＂You are actually introducing a listening bug to your homes. ＂he said. Smart speakers appear in the most intimate spaces-our homes, and they are eavesdropping on our conversations in order to get voice commands and response accordingly. They are on the whole time when working.
Just think about it, something around you are listening and eavesdropping on your conversations every second in your private spaces. What’s your response? Is it scary and fearful? We pay for the convenience that these electric devices provide to us.
We don't know to what extent the companies are co-operating with government to comply with the laws or rules, or to what extent the government is circumventing companies' security mechanism to try to be able to eavesdrop on us.
Although companies insist that smart speakers only detect keywords actively, we are not completely sure these devices are not recording our conversations and extract information from them.
03(Question)
It makes us feel chilly just to think if it seriously. However, what ’s the attitude of the general public? The assistant professor conducted a study on this topic.＂What we saw is that people are resigned to ＂that’s the trade-off we have to make attitude, a comprise＂. You receive something bad but also something good. ＂he explained.
In a nutshell, people exchange some privacy for high-tech gadgets for convenience and enjoyment. However, that might be the case currently as companies are taking on prominent situation comparing with customers. Nevertheless, are they willing to do so or they have no choice?
04(Answer)
How to protect our private information and fight for privacy is a challenging task. We need to think about it deeply and broadly.
In a grant scheme of things, what these devices hear is not that significant considering data companies have already known about us anyway.
Average customers should be careful about selecting electronic devices at homes. If you are not sure about security mechanism of smart speakers, then the best way to do is try them later when legitimate environment is getting much friendly and protectively for our folks.
