You decide to call a store that sells some hiking boots youre thinking of buying.
As you dial in, the computer of an artificial intelligence company hired by the store is activated.
It retrieves its analysis of the speaking style you used when you phoned other companies the software firm services.
The computer has concluded you are friendly and talkative.
This hypothetical situation may sound as if its from some distant future.
But automated voice-guided marketing activities like thisare happening all the time.
It can be you, too.
I examined hundreds of pages of U.S. and EU laws applying to biometric surveillance.
I analyzed dozens of patents.
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These are all barriers to understanding individual shoppers.
But there are alsohundreds of millionsof Amazon Echoes, Google Nests and other smart speakers out there.
Smartphones also contain such technology.
All are listening and capturing peoples individual voices.
They respond to your requests.
Perhaps they fear that pushing the technology too far will, at this point, lead to bad publicity.
The company assures customers it doesnt use Halo data for its own purposes.
But its clearly a proof of concept and a nod toward the future.
Patents point to the future
The patents from these tech companies offer a vision of whats coming.
From that conclusion, Alexa asks if the woman wants a recipe for chicken soup.
When she says no, it offers to sell her cough drops with one-hour delivery.
Image via Google Patents.
The contention is that how people sound allegedly does a better job indicating what people like than their words.
And one of Googles proprietary inventionsinvolves tracking family members in real time using special microphones placed throughout a home.
Firms gain customers permission by enticing them to buy inexpensive voice technologies.
This classic bait and switch marked the rise of both Google and Facebook.
This strategy is already starting to play out as tens of millions of consumersbuy Amazon Echoes at giveaway prices.
What if it tells a bank that youre a bad risk for a loan?
What if a restaurant decides it wont take your reservation because you sound low class, or too demanding?
People are already subjected to different offers and opportunities based on the personal information companies have collected.
Voice profiling adds an especially insidious means of labeling.
And the federal government hasnt enacted a sweeping marketing surveillance law.
This prohibition should also apply to political campaigns and to government activities without a warrant.
