Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 3 December 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Data Collection by Digital Assistants: Discussion (Resumed)

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I was interested because I got a fair number of queries from constituents who were coming to me saying that they thought their machine was listening to them and that it was affecting what they were getting. I can give a personal example. I was in the Dáil the week before last and I had a question for the Minister for Education and Skills during Question Time. I was briefly in my office beforehand and we discussed questions for the Department of Education and Skills. I went to the Chamber and got out my phone because I wanted to check something. I tapped in D-E-P-T, and the second thing my search came up with was Department of Education. The first thing was department store. I can show it to the witnesses later. The Department of Education and Skills is not the Department I usually work with, it is usually the Department for Communications, Climate Action and Environment. Why did my Google search show Department of Education? I presumed it was because I had just spoken about the Department of Education and Skills and it heard that and translated it into my search.

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