Posted on Thursday, April 13th, 2023
Learners in the Electrical Engineering Technology (EET) program are developing a device that can block tech from passive listening. Their prototype will be one of the projects on display at the RE/ACTION Showcase on April 14.
Virtual assistants like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa always have their microphones active, as they wouldn’t be able to respond otherwise. This raises obvious concerns for privacy-minded people, as it is not currently known how much, if any, of this passive listening is stored or otherwise recorded.
“If you’re at home and you’re trying to have private conversations, our goal is to maintain that integrity,” said EET learner Caleb Smith. “If you’re in public you could have people listening in, you’re expecting that, but when you’re at home it’s your own safe space. We want to…
