That sixth sense you have that someone is listening –
could it be your smart speaker? There's a chance the answer is
yes, even when you don't ask it to. A new study from Northeastern University finds
that smart speakers often accidentally activate and record
conversations, although just how often (sometimes as often as 19
times a day) and for how long (sometimes recording for 43 seconds)
depends on the device. Notably, the study also found that devices
are not consistently recording conversations, and
that the accidental listening and recording could be triggered by
dialogue in television shows.
Setting aside whatever concerns you might have as an individual
about the information being captured and recorded by your
home's smart speaker (and to be clear, those concerns are
important), the accidental capture of potentially sensitive
information raises a set of compliance issues for smart speaker
designers. For example, under the California Consumer Privacy Act
(CCPA),
