typically used by warehouse employees and refining smart home devices that adapt to a users vocal tics according to privacy experts and advocates who spoke with abc news these companies gather voice recordings to improve a service rotenberg added heres what that says about the economy rotenberg of the center for ai and digital policy warned that the collection of audio data could also result in nefarious actors accessing ones voice allowing them to commit fraud or other crimes through impersonation however even ostensibly innocuous uses of voiceassisted technology can trigger privacy concerns said turow of the university of pennsylvania once this has congealed we cant do much about it he said more apple and google did not immediately respond to a request for comment about potential theft and abuse of voice data with frustration detection alexa will recognize positive negative and neutral tone for a request an amazoncom inc soon after google launched google assistant a voicerecognition feature available on its android and google home devices more companies that collect voice data could use information to sell products directly to consumers or pass the data along to advertisers turow said controversy illuminates rise of facial recognition in private sector in the early 1960s ibm released the shoebox a calculator that could do basic arithmetic in response to voice commands a customerservice center uses artificial intelligence to identify a callers agitation an insurance company scans voice data to flag illness and raise rates a fivestar restaurant denies a reservation over personal details revealed by the tone on the other end of the line far from science fiction such scenarios have leapt into the realm of possibility said joseph turow a professor at university of pennsylvanias annenberg school for communication and author of the voice catchers how marketers listen in to exploit your emotions your privacy and your wallet more customers have several options to manage their alexa voice recordings including the option not to save their recordings at all she added three years later amazon came out with alexa a voice assistant that could play songs or look up facts in response to a simple utterance companies are increasingly finding novel ways to use voice technology to reduce human error and streamline operations she said bloomberg via getty images file critics fear that voiceassisted products glean more revealing data than many users realize allowing companies to profit off of utterances made at home or work through carefully honed advertising or the sale of intimate information the us lacks a federal law governing such data leaving regulation primarily at the state level heres the difference between a minimum wage and living wage and why it matters a survey conducted by the trade outlet last year found that 39 of warehouse companies use voiceassisted technology an increase from 21 of such businesses who reported adoption of the devices a year prior michel said but voice data collection also fuels targeted marketing based on personal information gleaned from recordings and risks