April 3rd, 2015
‘Eavesdropping’ WiFi Barbie is Seriously Creepy
By: Andrea Carlon
This fall, Mattel is expected to launch ‘Hello Barbie’, a doll that incorporates a voice-recognition technology, which captures the child’s speech. The recorded data is transferred via WiFi to TalkToy´s (company that has developed the technology) cloud servers. As a result of the processing and analysis of the data, over time, the ‘talking Barbie’ will be capable of learning information about the child and will be able to reproduce such information.
Internet-connected toys hold out the tantalizing promise of personalized services and also, the risk of privacy perils. First and foremost, the data which is being collected, pertains to minors. Even though, according to TalkToy, parental consent shall be required to activate the voice recognition feature, it remains controversial to what extent are parents protecting the minor’s privacy when allowing a company to record them and hand in all the information
Second, concerns as to what sort of information is exactly being collected are unclear. For instance, will the companies be able to track the location of children? Furthermore, neither Mattel nor TalkToy have disclosed what the privacy policy provisions will include. Also, in terms of the purpose of the data, will Mattel be allowed to share this data with third party advertisers? Given the company’s deteriorated economic situation, is there a heightened risk of them selling the data?
Third, advocates for privacy have expressed their unrest to the launching of this product. For instance, the CCFC (Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood) has questioned the use and purposes of the data collected. Furthermore, Professor Campbell from Georgetown University, Center on Privacy and Technology, has raised the issue as to the value for marketers of the information of what a child can say to their toys, and the potential unfairness towards children.
Fourth, the privacy issues this article contemplates should be contextualized within the recent and rising phenomenon of the Internet Of Things (IOT), making every day objects into technological devices connected to internet and transmitting data continuously can be concerning in many ways.
While it seems that many questions remain unresolved today, the Hello Barbie is expected to be available to consumers by the end of this year. We will have to wait to see how courts deal with privacy concerns derived from IOT, which surely and probably in a short period of time will arise.
Links to articles:
- Privacy advocates try to keep ‘creepy,’ ‘eavesdropping’ Hello Barbie from hitting shelves: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/03/11/privacy-advocates-try-to-keep-creepy-eavesdropping-hello-barbie-from-hitting-shelves/
- Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood: http://commercialfreechildhood.org/action/shut-down-hello-barbie