The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a substantial human, social and economic toll globally, but its impact on Black/African Americans, Latinx, and American Indian/Alaska Native communities in the U.S. is unconscionable. As the U.S. continues to combat the current COVID-19 cycle and prepares for future pandemics, it will be critical to learn from and rectify past and contemporary wrongs. Drawing on experiences in genomic research and intersecting areas in medical ethics, health disparities, and human rights, this article considers three key COVID-19-related issues: research to identify remedies; testing, contact tracing and surveillance; and lingering health needs and disability. It provides a pathway for the future: community engagement to develop culturally-sensitive responses to the myriad genomic/bioethical dilemmas that arise, and the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to transition the country from its contemporary state of segregation in healthcare and health outcomes into an equitable and prosperous society for all.

Structural Racism in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Moving Forward.

Roboticists are grappling with how to address privacy in robot design at a time when regulatory frameworks around the world increasingly require systems to be engineered to preserve and protect privacy. This paper surveys the top robotics journals and conferences over the past four decades to identify contributions with respect to privacy in robot design. Our survey revealed that less than half of one percent of the ~89,120 papers in our study even mention the word privacy. Herein, we propose privacy preserving approaches for roboticists to employ in robot design, including, assessing a robot’s purpose and environment; ensuring privacy by design by selecting sensors that do not collect information that is not essential to the core objectives of that robot; embracing both privacy and performance as fundamental design challenges to be addressed early in the robot lifecycle; and performing privacy impact assessments.

Enhancing Privacy in Robotics via Judicious Sensor Selection

Abstract The present study identifies, organizes, and structures the available scientific knowledge on the recent use and the prospects of Voice Assistants (VA) in private households. The systematic review of the 207 articles from the Computer, Social, and Business and Management research domains combines bibliometric with qualitative content analysis. The study contributes to earlier research by consolidating the as yet dispersed insights from scholarly research, and by conceptualizing linkages between research domains around common themes. We find that, despite advances in the technological development of VA, research largely lacks cross-fertilization between findings from the Social and Business and Management Sciences. This is needed for developing and monetizing meaningful VA use cases and solutions that match the needs of private households. Few articles show that future research is well-advised to make interdisciplinary efforts to create a common understanding from complementary findings—e.g., what necessary social, legal, functional, and technological extensions could integrate social, behavioral, and business aspects with technological development. We identify future VA-based business opportunities and propose integrated future research avenues for aligning the different disciplines’ scholarly efforts. 

Voice assistants in private households: a conceptual framework for future research in an interdisciplinary field

Parallel to the increasing use of smart speakers (aka virtual assistants), privacy concerns emerge. In this article, we provide a systematic review of the literature on privacy issues in smart speakers. Both Scopus and Web of Science databases are examined, as well as the preprint repository arXiv, to take into account the most recent contributions. That literature exhibits a continuously growing trend in the last 4 years, with the USA being the single largest contributor to the field. The topics debated in the literature concern the perception of privacy issues, their contribution to adoption choices, the identification of vulnerabilities, the proposal of possible countermeasures, and (last and least) the analysis of the legal cases that are arising.

Privacy in smart speakers: A systematic literature review

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Ria Kuruvilla

Papers

Between You, Me, and Alexa: On the Legality of Virtual Assistant Devices in Two-Party Consent States