Intelligent voice assistants, and the thirdparty apps (aka “skills” or “actions”) that power them, are increasing in popularity and beginning to experiment with the ability to continuously listen to users. This paper studies how privacy concerns related to such always-listening voice assistants might affect consumer behavior and whether certain privacy mitigations would render them more acceptable. To explore these questions with more realistic user choices, we built an interactive app store that allowed users to install apps for a hypothetical always-listening voice assistant. In a study with 214 participants, we asked users to browse the app store and install apps for different voice assistants that offered varying levels of privacy protections. We found that users were generally more willing to install continuously-listening apps when there were greater privacy protections, but this effect was not universally present. The majority did not review any permissions in detail, but still expressed a preference for stronger privacy protections. Our results suggest that privacy factors into user choice, but many people choose to skip this information.
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Understanding How to Inform Blind and Low-Vision Users about Data Privacy through Privacy Question Answering Assistants
Understanding and managing data privacy in the digital world can be challenging for sighted users, let alone blind and lowvision (BLV) users. There is limited research on how BLV users, who have special accessibility needs, navigate data privacy, and how potential privacy tools could assist them. We conducted an in-depth qualitative study with 21 US BLV participants to understand their data privacy risk perception and mitigation, as well as their information behaviors related to data privacy. We also explored BLV users’ attitudes towards potential privacy question answering (Q&A) assistants that enable them to better navigate data privacy information. We found that BLV users face heightened security and privacy risks, but their risk mitigation is often insufficient. They do not necessarily seek data privacy information but clearly recognize the benefits of a potential privacy Q&A assistant. They also expect privacy Q&A assistants to possess cross-platform compatibility, support multi-modality, and demonstrate robust functionality. Our study sheds light on BLV users’ expectations when it comes to usability, accessibility, trust and equity issues regarding digital data privacy.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1914486
- PAR ID:
- 10598509
- Publisher / Repository:
- 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 24) - USENIX Association
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 978-1-939133-44-1
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Privacy Blind and Low-Vision Users Privacy Question Answering Assistants
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Philadelphia, PA - USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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