Understanding user attitudes towards malicious audio recording on smart devices
Privacy Paradox
OVERVIEW
Although many smart devices are capable of advanced audio capture, there are few protections to support users’ awareness of what if recorded and when. We conducted interviews, focus groups, and participatory design sessions to understand users’ attitudes toward audio capture and to explore design solutions. Based on participant perspectives and design ideas, we make recommendations for software, hardware, and policy solutions that can support people’s audio data privacy goals.
THE TEAM
Ashley Boone
Undergraduate Research Assistant
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Design and conduct interviews with the general population as well as blind and low-vision participants
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Design participatory design sessions with special care to make the sessions accessible to all participants
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Qualitative analysis of interview data and presentation of findings
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Julia Dunbar
Graduate Researcher
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Emily Bascom
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Alexis Hiniker
Principal Investigator of the
User Empowerment Lab
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RESEARCH
Participants
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Methods
Interviews
We developed an interview protocol for each participant group, making small changes or additions as needed. The interview protocol was designed to get an in depth understanding of particular participants attitudes towards audio capture and microphone security.
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Focus Groups
Focus groups were conducted only with general population participants. The protocol was very similar to the interview protocol with small changes made to encourage group discussion among the participants.
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Design Sessions
Design Sessions were conducted with general population and blind or low-vision participants. Participants in design sessions were asked to solve one of eight concerns brought up by interview and focus group participants using one of eight possible modalities (sound, light, pop-up message, legislation).
RESULTS
Participants responses fall into two categories: concerned and unconcerned. The concerned and unconcerned users can be described by their attitudes towards five factors described below: trust, recording, control, consequences, and reactions.
Design Ideas
Notifying users of audio recording
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Visual or tactile cues that change to reflect the status of device microphone
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Surfacing usage data so participants can track how and when audio is collected
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Improving end-user agreements
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Improving readability of terms and conditions
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Repeatedly asking for permission
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Surfacing downstream effects
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Targeted advertisements indicate when they are selected based on audio data
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Emphasize potential consequences when the user agrees to audio capture
RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on these findings we recommend "A La Carte Design" which combats the all-or-nothing decisions many users are forced to make when making decisions about their privacy.
The "A la Carte" approach decouples invasive features and allows users to make informed decisions about their privacy and helps accommodate users who see value overall in a platform or service but may be uncomfortable with some aspects of the data collection.
There are two main principles of this approach:
1. Scoping data collection down to the minimum needed for a service
2. Allow users to remove aspects they find invasive while continuing to engage with as much of the service as possible.
We believe that these guidelines can help lead the industry to a more sensitive and inclusive design of microphone access on smart devices.