"What Can't Data Be Used For?": Privacy Expectations about Smart TVs in the U.S.

Abstract

Smart TVs have rapidly become the most common smart appliance in typical households. In the U.S., most television sets on the market have advanced sensors not traditionally found on conventional TVs, such as a microphone for voice commands or a camera for photo or video input. These new sensors enable features that are convenient, but they may also introduce new privacy implications. We surveyed 591 U.S. Internet users about their current understanding and expectations about how smart TVs collect and use data. We found a wide range of assumptions and opinions among our respondents, and a good deal of uncertainty about what's collected and how it is used. In addition, these assumptions and opinions varied between data types and sensors. One area where we found broad agreement was that it is unacceptable for the data to be repurposed or shared. But there was little understanding of the protections-or lack thereof-afforded by current laws and regulations to constrain such sharing. We hope that our findings will enhance end-user privacy by providing useful insights for smart TV manufacturers, regulators and lawmakers, and designers of privacy-enhancing technologies.

Privacy Attitudes of Smart Speaker Users

“…As their popularity increases, Internet of Things devices present an increasing threat to the security of the Internet as a whole [17,23,44] as well as to the privacy of individual end-users [4,9,14]. Yet, because these devices enter homes as "smarter" versions of already-existing appliances (e.g., TVs, light bulbs, and locks), users are often unaware of the risks they pose [32]. Because of the mismatch between user perceptions and actual behavior, researchers have sought to document users' privacy expectations, in order to understand where gaps might lead to privacy failures and help device designers create systems better aligned with people's preferences.…”

“…Prior research suggests that users lack a clear mental model of how voice assistants work [10,29,50]. For example, many may be confused about whether processing happens on-device or in the cloud [32].…”

“…However, privacy policies do not clearly state that other humans may be reviewing users' recordings, and, when we ran our survey, this fact remained secret from the public. Furthermore, prior research has shown that a large fraction of users believe that humans will not have access to voice recordings from their IoT devices [32].…”

Defending My Castle

“…Other studies focused on specific smart home devices. Malkin et al 's survey about smart TVs revealed their respondents' uncertainty of data collection and usage as well as the common nonacceptance of data being re-purposed or shared with third parties [24]. McReynolds et al's study on smart toys unveiled parents' concerns about the toys' recording and data sharing abilities and children's concerns about being heard by their parents [26].…”

“…Another underlying factor of participants' designs was related to security, including aspects such as authentication of multiple users, access control of user data, and network intrusion detection. Twenty participants (all participants except P15, [18][19][24][25] considered this factor in their designs.…”