Toronto Metropolitan University

Purpose

Smart speakers are the most popular smart home device in Canada and millions of Canadians use voice assistants like Alexa or Siri on a daily basis. However, smart speakers – and other voice-activated devices such as phones, wearables, and cars – do not only record conversations, they can also automatically produce biometric voice profiles of adults and children. The primary objective of this project is to map the array of applications for health-related machine listening to identify privacy risks and protect the privacy rights of Canadians. This will be achieved through multi-method research and an impactful digital literacy campaign. The first study maps the industry of health-related machine listening to identify information risks that fall under the scope of PIPEDA. The second study investigates the privacy policies that cover health-related voice data to see how the basic principle of consent is being fulfilled or not. And the final study identifies risks of significant harms related to health-related machine listening. Knowledge translation activities will target four segments of the public: citizens/consumers, digital literacy stakeholder organizations, privacy regulators and policy makers, and the private sector.