For homeowners, having smart home devices may not only improve home security, but also threaten their privacy.
For homeowners, having smart home devices may not only improve home security, but also threaten their privacy.
Up to 48.9% of homeowners believe their smart home speakers record their private conversations so as to send them targeted advertisements, according to a survey conducted by Porch, an app-based home improvement service. The survey aimed to find out how much homeowners trust their smart home devices.
Both Google and Amazon stated that their products won’t listen to users’ conversations until they hear the wake-up words. Neither of them is sending targeted advertisements through smart speakers currently. It’s just the homeowners feel this way.
Overall, 27% of the respondents believe smart home technologies enhance privacy and personal security; while 25% believe smart home technologies threaten privacy and personal security.
According to the survey, trust of smart home devices varies in different age groups. 75.1% of millennial respondents own smart home devices and 70.4% trust the devices. Meanwhile, 57.4% of baby-boomer respondents own smart home devices and 56.5% trust the devices.
If data right or privacy is breached, users are most likely to lose trust in technology. 48.2% of the respondents said if the terms of service allow for unfettered access to their data, they would completely lose trust in smart home technology; 47.7% said the same if the hardware or software secretly collects their data.
Overall, 24% of smart home device owners don’t really trust their smart home devices, according to the survey.
As for companies that provide voice technology, 64% of respondents said they trust Amazon, 62.4% said Google, 58.1% said Microsoft and 54.7% said Apple.
While asking if homeowners believe corporations “won’t” misuse collected information, 45.6% of Samsung users gave positive answers, 41.3% of Amazon users said so, along with 37.7% of Google users and 35% of Apple users.
Porch collected 1,023 respondents’ answers, ages 18 to 76 with an average age of 36. 49.1% of the respondents are male and 50.9% are female.