Dr. Benjamin Cowan:

I echo the point that this is to do with regulation but also design. There is a sense that the interaction needs to be designed around the privacy-as-standard view. The interesting thing I find, especially from our research whenever we look at voice technology, is that these technologies are seen as conversational and as using conversation or speech as a kind of metaphor for interaction. That could be used as a way of informing people about what these systems can and cannot do and what they have when it comes to privacy or consent. However, the tech companies need to do this through design. That does not seem to be coming through the design of the systems at the moment. It is therefore not just a matter of legislation. It is about not only researching what the design issues are for the users but also how we can make interaction convenient for them with privacy baked in, and what they can do with the way in which these systems operate in the first place. There are some really easy wins. A conversational system could be used to ask whether it is appropriate that the platform is gathering certain data in certain contexts. That is a design choice, however, and a design decision to make, so there needs to be collaboration between design teams and people involved in data ethics as well as legislators whenever doing this. That is the only way in which a sustainable, user-centred solution will come.