Week 3– This week I had to discuss the question below about an article I read.

Article: Dara, R. (2019, December).  The dark side of Alexa, Siri and other personal digital assistants. The conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/the-dark-side-of-alexa-siri-and-other-personal-digital-assistants-126277

Q: Discuss the security implications raised in this article, current and/or future, for a library.

Libraries are constantly changing. Libraries attempt to keep up to date with the latest technological advances. There is popularity gaining with artificial intelligence and personal digital assistants. This article talks about some advantages of using digital assistants but also some potential security threats. The author, Dara raises security implications about the use of digital assistants. The use of  digital assistants in a library setting would also pose these security threats.

Digital assistants collect and store data. They also listen to background conversations and noise to help retrieve information tailored specific for the user. If patrons were to use a digital assistant to search for information, do database searches, place books on hold, all this information would be saved. This information may be personal, identifiable and sensitive data that a library patron may not want or even realise it is being stored. It would also leave patrons that are non-users of this technology potentially having data collected such as their voice, purely by being in the same area as a digital assistant. This raises user and non-user privacy issues. All the stored information also has a possibility of being hacked, which could leave many library patrons open to having their information misused. 

Most of these personal assistants devices store the information they have recorded on third party platforms which they keep until a user has deleted it (Smith, 2019). This poses the question of how and when will a library visitor delete their information stored? Some companies such as Apple, do protect a user’s identity by using anonymous ID’s, having their servers encrypt any information and giving users all the information of what and how their information is stored. This gives users more power in knowing what happens with their data and gives them the option if they want to choose to continue to use this service(Apple Inc, 2019). Although it may still not be guaranteed. Not all companies have clear guidelines on their privacy and security. There is also no effective government regulation of these devices. It’s pretty scary to think that these devices are constantly surveilling you. It definitely brings into question the privacy issues associated with the device. Are they too risky to have available in a public space such as a library? Especially where there may be individuals who may not fully understand the full security risks of such a device, such as vulnerable people including children or digitally illiterate people (Lynskey, 2019)

References 

Lynskey, D (2019), Alexa, are you invading my privacy?’ – the dark side of our voice assistants. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/09/alexa-are-you-invading-my-privacy-the-dark-side-of-our-voice-assistants

Apple Inc. (2019), Privacy Policy – The Apple Privacy Policy. Retrieved from  https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/

Smith, C (2019),  Your Library Needs to Speak to You – Getting ahead of the voice assistant hype. Retrieved from https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2019/06/03/voice-assistants-your-library-needs-to-speak-to-you/