By Shakira Ramirez
In today’s digital age, people across the globe are choosing to video conference their personal, business, and formal meetings. Now, there are Artificial Intelligence tools, such as Otter.ai that can attend a meeting as your own personal virtual assistant, take screenshots of the presentation and send you a live transcript of the entire meeting.[1] A quick download is tempting, however, take a moment to actually read Otter.ai’s Privacy Policy. Otter.ai’s privacy policy states, “We obtain explicit permission (e.g. when you rate the transcript quality and check the box to give Otter.ai and its third-party service provider(s) permission to access the conversation for training and product improvement purposes) for manual review of specific audio recordings to further refine our model training data.”[2]
During my internship, I saw the implications of an AI Assistant recording and transcribing meetings that were confidential. For example, Otter.ai can attend a scheduled Zoom meeting without your presence and attend on your behalf. Otter.ai then sends a general message letting the Zoom participants of the meeting know that the meeting is being recorded, and transcribed live. This was alarming to multiple people attending this meeting because the information was confidential, this led the host of the meeting frantically removing all AI assistants. This led to issues of privacy and potential breach of confidentiality in meetings. Immediately, the company decided to limit the use of all types of artificial intelligence assistance to maintain privacy. The reasoning for this decision was that new forms of AI assistants are being constantly being developed and the company did not want their sensitive data to be used in the artificial intelligence data model training. This prompted an educational informational meeting, and all employees were told to check in with the legal and security department before downloading or using any form of artificial intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence systems are being used in various sectors including journalism. Recently, a journalist by the name Phelim Kine interviewed a human rights advocate named Mustafa Aksu.[3] Mustafa Aksu is a part of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, a research-based program that promotes the civil rights of Uyghurs and other Turki Muslim peoples in East Turkistan.[4] Phelim used Otter.ai to transcribe the phone interview, and the next day Phelim decided an email stating, “Hey Phelim, to help us improve your Otter’s experience, what was the purpose of this particular recording with titled ‘Mustafa Aksu’ created at ‘2021-11-08 11:02:41’?”[5] When Phelim decided to contact Otter.ai seeking to confirm if this was a real survey or phishing attempt, Otter.ai originally confidence the survey was legitimate, but then followed with a denial from the same Otter.ai representative, and Phelim was told to “not respond to that survey and delete it.” [6] This lead Phelim to ask clarifying questions to Otter.ai such as, “whether it shares user data with non-U.S. government or law enforcement agencies,” and Otter.ai’s response was, “We disclose Personal Information if we are legally required to do so, or if we have a good faith belief that such use is reasonably necessary to comply with a legal obligation, process or request.”[7] As a journalist this made Phelim hyperaware of the alarming privacy tradeoff of using an AI assistance for ease of transcribing.[8]
As users look for convenience in relying on artificial intelligence assistant systems, we must be aware of what, if any privacy measures we have in using those services. Caveat emptor might be the standard that is applied when relying on AI assistant systems, therefore, it is highly suggested to read the privacy policy before downloading and ask yourself, “Is the convenience worth subjecting my personal material to an artificial intelligence data model training system?”
[1] Otter Quick Start Guide, https://help.otter.ai/hc/en-us/categories/360002285334-Getting-started (choose “Otter Quick Start Guide”) (last visited Sept. 26, 2023).
[2] Otter.ai Privacy Policy, (June 14, 2023) https://otter.ai/privacy-policy.
[3] Phelim Kine, My Journey Down the Rabbit Hole of Every Journalist’s Favorite App, Politico (Feb.16, 2022 12:00pm), https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/16/my-journey-down-the-rabbit-hole-of-every-journalists-favorite-app-00009216.
[4] Who We Are, Uyghur Human Rights Project, https://uhrp.org/about/ (last visited Sep. 26, 2023).
[5] Kine, supra note 3.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.