Privacy and Security in the Use of Voice Assistant: An Evaluation of User Awareness and Preferences

Recently, voice assistants have become increasingly popular with millions of users relying on them to complete daily tasks and access information. While it may be convenient to use, some may question its security and are concerned about their privacy. While the users are attracted to the beneficial services provided by voice assistants, they are risking their personal information. This study aims to evaluate user awareness regarding the privacy and security aspects of voice assistants, and their preferences for future development of voice assistants. The literature review in this study obtained three vulnerabilities of privacy and security in the use of voice assistants and the countermeasures that can be taken. The user-centric countermeasures to mitigate the vulnerability of voice assistants were chosen for analysis by systematically evaluating 151 relevant journal and conference articles from 6 databases and 52 were chosen for analysis. To evaluate user awareness and preferences regarding the use of voice assistants, a questionnaire with a total of 37 participants who have experience in using voice assistants was done. The results showed that the participants were aware of the voice assistant's vulnerability and were concerned that their data might be misused.