“What can I help you with?” Siri asks. Sitting in my pocket, Siri is always ready to assist me with every little need. But like some friends, Siri politely asks for more personal information than I’d like to give up. To use certain functions, Siri must know my address and credit card number. Although Siri was made with the best intentions of being efficient, she compromises users’ privacy and security by asking for too much information. There’s a lot that digital assistants like Apple’s Siri, Windows’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa can do, but a lot of it can be very dangerous.
In the recent advertisements for Alexa, Amazon shows how Alexa can purchase items ranging from tape to pizza, give local news updates, order and track Amazon services and give answers to quick math equations. While Siri does not have all of these capabilities, Siri includes similar location features, but needs to know where the user is. A feature that Siri has, which Alexa doesn’t, is the HomeKit feature. This feature can turn off lights, change the temperature on the thermostat, turn different home devices on and off and lock and unlock doors. Although all these features seem convenient for users, if strangers find an iPhone on the ground, they can find where the owner lives and get into their house with ease. Since the HomeKit feature poses a huge security risk if in the wrong hands, the feature should be fixed by Apple to be safer for iPhone users.
Similar to Siri and Alexa, Cortana has many of the same basic capabilities, like tracking packages, setting reminders and finding random facts. So far, I think Cortana is the safest between the three digital assistants, since it can turn off its responses to strangers and not work while the device is locked. Although these options must be manually changed, simply switching various default settings makes Cortana significantly safer than Alexa and Siri. Being safe is important, but this does mean that Cortana cannot do everything for a user. In exchange for safety, Cortana may not be as good as other digital assistants, but I think it’s better this way.
To use most of Alexa’s functions, like keeping track of banking, ordering pizza, and being able to start cars, Alexa needs to know the user’s payment information, be linked to an Amazon account for purchases and know its location. On the other hand, Siri only needs the user’s location and connection to their homes to work, while Cortana needs to know the address and accounts a person uses to purchase online merchandise and track shipments. All of the digital assistants are able to order packages, but I believe Alexa is the best, since she is directly linked to Amazon. Even though Alexa delivers packages efficiently, if she gets into the wrong hands, there could be credit card fraud, Amazon purchase fraud and people could rob the user’s house. While other types of fraud and theft are possible with Cortana and Siri, the information that Alexa knows is more detrimental. Still, I believe that Alexa’s efficiency of ordering packages outweighs the security risks.
Now that digital assistants can access private payment information and home addresses easily, they can be dangerous. However, digital assistants do a lot of good and help people when they have trouble with something. They are easy to use even when a person’s hands are full, since they are activated by voice commands. They also are programmed so that they can be more efficient. However, sometimes devices get into the wrong hands, making digital assistants more of a weapon than a tool.
Unfortunately, new technology brings new ways to exploit itself, which runs true with every new electronic device on the market. It was only in 2015 that a single text could cause an iPhone to crash and immediately reboot itself. It’s likely that hackers will find ways to exploit these new features, but the companies will also continue to come up with ways to stop people from hacking their products.
Right now, digital assistants are not that reliable. But as the technology continues to evolve, they will become better and better at serving us and at the same time, hopefully become more safe.
