outreach – Always Listening Podcast
In today's connected world it is common to be asked for your data, and users may consent without any understanding of how their information is being used. Although this is often standard practice, knowledge about how your data is being used should be made available through privacy policies, as it is a legal requirement. Read More ›
outreach – Research Blog
AI assistants have become indispensable and a useful part of everyday life for people across the world. However, the key limitation in their uptake has always been the question of data security. The SAIS research team set out to investigate the gap between what users think is happening to their data and what is actually happening to their data. Through a review of current work the research team put together a picture of the Alexa ecosystem and created a way to quantify the transparency of Alexa skills, also leading to the tool Skillvet. Read More ›
outreach – Always Listening Podcast
In the first of our four-part podcast series from the SAIS research project, we explore how the voice AI Assistant system works, with some surprising insights along the way. Read More ›
outreach – Research Blog
In the first instalment of our research blogs we look at why there is a need to understand and communicate security in AI Assistants and what insights we have gained from SAIS research so far. Read More ›
publications – Preliminary Work
Determining how voice assistants should broker consent to share data with third party software has proven to be a complex problem. Alexa now offers “voice-forward consent”, allowing users to grant skills access to personal data mid-conversation using speech. While more usable and convenient than current alternatives, asking for consent 'on the fly' can undermine several concepts core to the informed consent process. The intangible nature of voice interfaces further blurs the boundary between parts of an interaction controlled by third-party developers from the underlying platforms. We outline a research agenda towards usable and effective voice-based consent to address the problems with brokering consent verbally, including our own work drawing on the GDPR and work on consent in Ubicomp. Read More ›