2022/04/21 by William Seymour, Seymour, William, Mark Coté +3
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #AI in Service Interactions #Computers and Society (cs.CY) #Digital Economy and Work Transformation #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2204.10058
openalex publication_date 2022/04/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Determining how voice assistants should broker consent to share data with third party software has proven to be a complex problem. Devices often require users to switch to companion smartphone apps in order to navigate permissions menus for their otherwise hands-free voice assistant. More in line with smartphone app stores, 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 opening a companion app, 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.