There are loopholes in the privacy and security of smart speakers owned by 35 million families.
"Small, small, what’s the temperature today?" "Today’s weather temperature is MINUS 3 degrees to 6 degrees." Every day, when you talk to the smart speaker, do you know that it is also collecting your audio information at any time, even the location and address book are well known?
On January 8, Beijing time, at the annual CES show in the United States, Samsung announced that it would release its first smart speaker at the beginning of this year. Since then, all technology giants and well-known Internet companies have all entered the smart speaker market segment, making this industry usher in the first new development trend after four years of start. According to the latest data, in 2019, 35 million households in China already owned smart speakers. In order to continue to expand the market share, the price subsidy continues. When people are used to buying a smart speaker in 99 yuan, the security and privacy risks behind it are ignored.
Digital intelligent speaker
In 2015, the retail volume of smart speakers in China was only 10,000.
In 2016, this retail number only increased to 60,000 units.
In 2018, smart speakers ushered in a market outbreak and became a market segment with a capacity of 10 million.
According to the monitoring data of Aowei Cloud, the retail volume of China smart speaker market in 2018 was 16.25 million units; In the first half of 2019, the retail volume of smart speakers in China was 15.56 million units.
Just like smart phones, the smart speaker market is gradually dominated by "domestic products". According to market research firm Canalys, Alibaba, Baidu and Xiaomi ranked second, third and fifth respectively in the global smart speaker market in the third quarter of 2019. Among them, Ali’s global market share reached 13.6%, followed by Baidu and Xiaomi, with market shares of 13.1% and 12.0%.
market
Smart speakers gather the "all-star" lineup
In the era of mobile internet, all new things related to "intelligence" may be ushered in. This time, it seems that it is the turn of the smart speaker.
How hot is the smart speaker? You can get a glimpse of these facts.
"If the sky is sentimental and old, we are special now!" At the New Year’s Eve party of a satellite TV station in 2020, a dialogue between smart speakers and popular stars appeared in the interactive scene of the party. Then, it was discovered that smart speakers appeared in the New Year’s Eve party of several popular TV stations this year without exception.
On January 8, Beijing time, at the annual CES show in the United States, Samsung announced that it would release its first smart speaker — — Galaxy Home Mini, a smart speaker that can control smart devices such as lights and refrigerators at home. Thus, Apple, Google, Amazon, Baidu, Ali, Huawei, Xiaomi … … The market segment of smart speakers presents an "all-star" lineup.
"Xiao Ai, Xiao Ai, please open the curtains." Every morning, when Li Nainai wakes up, she will talk to her "friends" first. Two months ago, Li Nainai lived in this community for the aged. When she first walked into the room, she found a round device on the cabinet in front of the bed. The staff told her that it was a smart speaker that could talk, play music and listen to instructions. It didn’t take long for Li Nainai to learn to talk to the speakers. "It is said that these smart speakers are equipped in emerging pension communities."
At the end of 2019, Time magazine named "10 most influential technology products in the past 10 years". Among the products on the list, besides Apple iPad, Tesla Model S, AirPods wireless headset and DJI Elf UAV, Amazon Echo smart speaker is also among them. Echo is the world’s first smart speaker.
cause
Merchants value the connection significance of smart speakers.
"Today’s young people, if they don’t have a smart speaker at home, I’m afraid they are embarrassed to say that they know technology." A post-90 s technology enthusiast told reporters that smart speakers with a few hundred yuan belong to technology products that can be bought if they want. The low price is one of the main reasons why he and his friends are willing to try. "If you don’t like it, you don’t need it, but it’s not a pity."
299 yuan, 199 yuan and even 99 yuan can buy a smart speaker. Thanks to the cruel price war, the smart speaker market can rapidly expand its market share with a devastating trend.
Why are companies willing to "pour blood" on smart speakers? Obviously, what everyone is interested in is the connection meaning of smart speakers. In the era of mobile internet, the words of "three sentences without leaving the mouth" of technology giants and Internet companies are: entrance and ecology. In the eyes of enterprises, whoever can become the entrance of users can realize resources in the future. Among many products, the smart speaker has the characteristics of voice interaction, Wi-Fi connection, compactness and portability, and low layout cost, which makes it the most suitable choice.
In fact, at present, this price war is still going on. Yesterday, reporters successively logged on the official websites of Baidu, Alibaba and Xiaomi, and their smart speakers were all promoting. On Xiaomi Mall, the touch-screen version of the small love speaker, the original price is 299 yuan, and the current price is 199 yuan; Non-touch screen version of the little love speaker, the original price of 169 yuan, the current price of 99 yuan. Baidu Zhixuan, small smart speaker Play, original price 99 yuan, current price 76 yuan; Small artificial intelligence speaker 1S, original price 159 yuan, current price 129 yuan. On the official flagship store of Tmall Elf, the Tmall Elf Sugar R smart speaker, the original price is 199 yuan, and the current price is 79 yuan; The official standard version of Tmall Elf X1 smart speaker, the original price is 499 yuan, and the current price is 199 yuan.
"After users get used to price subsidies, this promotion will not stop for at least a short time." An industry insider told reporters.
risk
Excessive collection of user information lacks monitoring.
"Have you chosen who will monitor your privacy?" Under the appearance of the expansion of the wind and fire, smart speakers are also criticized for their security and privacy issues.
Not long ago, Amazon smart speaker Alexa was complained. When the user asked the smart speaker "What is the cardiac cycle", the latter not only did not give the correct answer, but began to teach her to "insert the knife into the heart". An Amazon spokesperson responded that Alexa may have extracted some malicious texts from Wikipedia, and the related failures have been handled.
The latest "2019 Internet Equipment-Smart Speaker Security White Paper" issued by China ICT Institute also points out that there are ten security risks in smart speakers. The first big risk is that the rules of personal information collection and processing are vague, and there is a risk of excessive collection and use. According to the White Paper, as a central control in smart homes, when users interact with smart speakers, smart speakers will collect audio information, which includes voiceprints in personal information. However, in privacy statements, it is often not clear how sensitive information such as voiceprints and fingerprints are collected, stored, transferred, deleted and secondary processed.
At the same time, smart speakers are prone to the phenomenon of continuous collection of sensitive information such as user’s voice and location without the user’s knowledge. Some smart speakers do not clearly inform users of the purpose, mode, scope and frequency of collecting usage information through privacy policies or other means, nor do they provide users with clear choices of permission and rejection.
In addition, some smart speakers can add contacts to make voice calls. Behind the rich and convenient applications, there are also risks of data leakage, unauthorized access, high-risk exploitation, session hijacking and malicious code implantation. The White Paper suggests that smart speaker equipment should standardize the collection and use of users’ personal information, implement the principle of informing and agreeing to the collection and use of users’ information, and especially strengthen the life-cycle security protection of users’ personal sensitive information such as audio. (Reporter Zhao Yingying)