Smart Speakers and secure environments.

Have often had this objection to smart speakers brought. Here a possible solution.

 Less Nosy Smart Speakers

The Michigan Engineer News Center, Gabe Cherry, June 8, 2021

University of Michigan (U-M) researchers have designed a device called PrivacyMic to reduce eavesdropping by smart speakers by notifying household devices of important data without recording speech. PrivacyMic pieces together ambient ultrasonic information that indicate when its services are required. The system compresses these ultrasonic signatures into smaller files that feature key bits of information, while removing noise within the range of human hearing. The researchers showed that PrivacyMic was more than 95% accurate in identifying household and office activities. U-M’s Alanson Sample said, “What we’ve found is that you can have a system that understands what’s going on, and a hard guarantee that it will never record any audible information.”