Beliefs undermining protective action against smart speaker privacy risks: perceived benefits, trust in the manufacturer, and nothing to hide beliefs

The uptake of smart speakers in our homes is steadily increasing. While bringing convenience and access to information, they also bring substantial risks to our privacy. In this study, we investigated which factors undermine taking privacy protective action, drawing on people’s beliefs related to smart speaker privacy identified in earlier qualitative studies. Based on the synthesized analysis of qualitative studies, we hypothesized that perceived benefits of smart speakers, trust in the manufacturer, and nothing to hide beliefs reduce protective action, at least partially mediated by perceived privacy risks. In addition, we examined whether these same beliefs, partially mediated via perceived risks, also affect feeling powerlessness about protecting smart speaker data. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a scenario study, in which participants were asked to imagine receiving a smart speaker as a gift and install it. We recruited a convenience sample (N= 267), consisting of both current smart speaker owners and non-owners. The findings derived from structural equation modelling supported our hypotheses that perceived privacy risks is positively related to protection intention, as well as to feeling powerless. Furthermore, in line with our hypotheses, perceived benefits of the smart speaker, trust in the manufacturer and nothing to hide beliefs were found to undermine protection intention, partially or fully mediated by perceived privacy risks. Finally, trust in the manufacturer also significantly lowered feeling powerless, partially mediated by perceived privacy risks. Overall, these findings offer valuable insights for designing interventions that aim to increase protective action taking against the privacy risks of smart home devices, while attempting not to increase powerlessness.