As technology for monitoring health and wellbeing expands its scope, the potential for misuse becomes a growing concern.
A smart speaker, such as an Amazon Echo or Google Home, could potentially be used to remotely track and monitor a person’s heartbeat. That’s the findings of researchers at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the University of Massachusetts. While the potential benefits to health and wellbeing are substantial, giving us access to fitness routines and easy contact with loved ones, there are also risks that these systems could be abused by hackers looking to break in when nobody’s home. The smart speakers we have in our homes might not be ready to track our vitals just yet, but Google and Amazon could have a battle ahead to convince users that the risks outweigh the rewards if they want to implement these features. For their tests, the researchers used an off-the-shelf JBL Jembe and a MacBook Pro laptop with a microphone to create their own prototype smart speaker.
