German Kid Smartwatch Ban Opens Voice-Activated Privacy Debate

Germany's recent move to ban the sale of children's smartwatches with built-in voice recognition technology may lead privacy regulators to adopt a ban for other such devices, privacy professionals told Bloomberg Law. Inc.'s Alexa, become commonplace, German privacy officials may seek to ban them or restrict how they are used. The global voice and speech recognition market is valued at nearly $6.2 billion in 2017 and is likely to reach $18.3 billion by 2023, according to an August report by competitive market research company MarketsAndMarkets Research Private Ltd. "If something is said in your living room and that speech is recorded and passed along to data providers, it's exactly the same as surveillance, Marit Hansen, data protection officer for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, told Bloomberg Law. As voice-controlled devices continue to grow, so too will data privacy concerns over devices that store voice commands and back up the data through a central server, Hansen said. German regulators are considering how to regulate such devices under German privacy law amendments set to take effect when the European Union's new privacy regime, the General Data Protection Regulation takes effect in May 2018, she said.