Influencing factors for users’ privacy and security protection behavior in smart speakers: Insights from a Swiss user study

Smart speakers pose several risks to security and privacy, which users can counter with protective measures. This paper investigates the factors contributing to the adoption of protective measures by smart speaker users. Using survey data from Swiss participants, we first captured four different combinations of users with (no) concerns and (no) measures. We then used six factors to examine which of these influence protective behavior. Our findings reveal that whether or not protective measures are taken is affected by the usage context, usage duration, gender, opinion toward emotion recognition, and reasons for acquisition, but not by model/manufacturer, age and education level. With our results, we want to contribute to the ongoing discussion about influencing factors on concerns and protective measures, using the smart speaker domain as an example.