Perceived Responsibility and Capability for Smart Speaker Privacy Controls: A Cross-National Study in Germany and the UK

Smart speakers are popular assistants but require constant processing of voice data, thus, posing threats to users’ and bystanders’ privacy. While different privacy controls are available it is unknown who people perceive as responsible at the three stages conceptualization, implementation, and activation. Answering this question is, however, important because it helps assigning accountability and might indicate missing tools and knowledge to effectively manage and maintain users’ privacy. We hence distributed an online questionnaire to 2,590 participants in Germany and the UK and asked them to rank different parties (manufacturer, state, other authorities, users) according to their perceived responsibility to propose new privacy controls, ensure their availability, and activate them. While participants perceive the manufacturer as most responsible for all stages, higher educated participants and those from the UK recognize the data protection authority's role and rank it higher in certain cases. Based on our results, we identify future research directions.